Pertunia Ratsatsi

A 64-year-old man collapsed and died after his bank card was allegedly swallowed by an ATM in Tembisa.

Johannes Boy Jiyane was drawing money on Tuesday to buy groceries for the unveiling of his wife's tombstone this Saturday.

His wife died in May 2006.

Jiyane became sickly after his wife's death and was forced to retire from work in November last year. "He had always promised to erect a tombstone for his wife. He paid for the stone with part of his pension money. The stone was to be erected on Saturday morning and was to have been unveiled at 10am the same day," his sister Emily Sepato said yesterday.

Sepato said her brother left home in the morning to draw money for groceries. He collapsed at the Oakmoor train station at about noon.

"I got a call at about 2pm informing me that my brother had collapsed. When I got to the station, he was already dead. He had collapsed in front of the machine," she said.

"The people who were present at the time said he had complained that the ATM had swallowed his bank card," she said.