Mom in futile dash for help
2008-02-12 22:44
Johannesburg - A mother tried desperately, but in vain, to get her daughter to a hospital through rush-hour traffic after the 12-year-old had been hit in crossfire.
Emily Williams, a Grade 7 pupil at Trinity House Preparatory School in Rand Park Ridge, died before her mother could reach a hospital.
The drama started when Tony Williams of Fairlands arrived with Emily, her sister, Sophie, 10, and two other pupils to fetch Alison, 12, the daughter of Andrew Sanders, for school.
They didn't know robbers had hit the house about an hour earlier and had tied up the family (Andrew Sanders, Alison and her granny) and their domestic worker, inside the house.
The robbers were carrying goods from the house to the garage.
Police spokesperson Bokkie Keulder said Tony Williams smelt a rat and called the Sanders' security company after seeing one of the robbers outside the house.
Gunfight broke out
Williams asked the man who he was and he just turned to go back inside the house.
Moments later, two Chubb guards arrived. A gunfight broke out between them and the robbers.
Emily, who was sitting next to the left window nearest the house, was hit in the head by a stray bullet, said Mark Stokoe of Netcare 911.
Police spokesperson Karen Jacobs said Williams immediately sped off, apparently headed for Wilgeheuwel Hospital in Roodepoort.
She stopped en route at a petrol station in CR Swart Drive, where paramedics who were on their way to the house where the shooting had taken place, gave Emily emergency treatment.
Stokoe said Emily apparently had died en route to the hospital.
Deputy principal Hilton Scott said Emily, a "Top 10" academic performer, was the third pupil his school had lost in the past four months.
Keulder said all four suspected robbers were in custody.
The petrol station was cordoned off by police for most of the morning. Friends and family supported Williams, who was inconsolable, and the girls.
A friend screamed at the media and even threw water on the photographers' camera bags.
Williams, in an orange shirt, was in a daze and friends had to support her physically at times.
Her husband, Roger, arrived just after 08:00.
The traffic turning from Beyers Naudé into CR Swart Drive backed up for about an hour.
School is 'devastated'
The charged atmosphere was aggravated when the driver of a white BMW rear-ended the Life Flora Clinic mortuary van because the car driver apparently was trying to see what was going on.
The head of Trinity House, Dr Herbie Staple, said the school was "devastated".
"It's that much worse when you lose someone who was so talented and involved in the school. She was the kind of girl to whom people could take their problems.
"Our lives are empty, with the loss of Emily."