Desperate dash to hospital with Senzo Meyiwa recounted by friend
Image: Steve Haag/Gallo Images
Senzo Meyiwa’s friend recounted on Wednesday how he tried to stop blood flowing from the footballer’s gun wound while his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo drove to hospital in a desperate bid to get medical assistance.
Tumelo Madlala, who was among those inside the Vosloorus house on the day the Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper was killed in 2014, said it was difficult to carry Meyiwa to the car after the shooting to transport him to hospital.
“We tried to pick him up but he was heavy. I remember I was at the back, behind him.”
He said they battled to lift Meyiwa from the floor where he had slumped after being shot during the alleged home invasion.
Once in the car, “his head was on me and in the middle it was Mthokozisi [Twala, another friend] and at the side it was Zandi [ Khumalo’s sister],” Madlala told the court.
Other people had arrived at the house by then, who Madlala described as neighbours.
He said one woman gave him a face cloth to cover the wound.
“She said I must place it on the hole where the blood was coming out. Kelly was driving. As she was driving she was hitting humps and Zandi reprimanded her.”
He said they urged Khumalo to travel slower to minimise jolting for the injured Meyiwa.
They drove to Botshelong Hospital, where Meyiwa was stretchered away.
After a while a nurse came to them holding an X-ray and asked to speak to someone older, he said. Khumalo’s mother Ntombi went with the nurse.
“She [Ntombi] came back to us crying. She told us Senzo was no more and everyone started crying.”
Madlala said when he was taken to view Meyiwa’s body, he was lying face up and covered on a stretcher.
“I was crying and asked him: ‘Senzo have you called me to come and see this?’,” alluding to how he had travelled from KwaZulu-Natal to visit Meyiwa in Gauteng at his request.
He said when he left the room, he kissed Meyiwa on his forehead.
He said Khumalo removed his watch.
By then, Meyiwa’s fellow soccer players and Mandisa, his wife, had started arriving.
On Tuesday, Madlala testified that Meyiwa, Khumalo, he and others were sitting in the lounge when they saw armed gunman walk into the house, demanding money and cellphones. He said Meyiwa was shot after attacking one robber.
The trial continues.
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