On Sunday I returned from 3 weeks with my gorgeous family in Pretoria. I was already sad that I had to leave them all, irritated by being inconvenienced by 6 people who delayed the flight for an hour while we sweltered in the plane on the tarmac and wanting to get home for the double header of F1 at 3pm and Liverpool at 5pm. That was the plan.
Immediately after the game ended, as we as diehard Liverpool fans waited for the fanfare and speeches of Klopp leaving, we heard an enormous thud outside followed by a chaotic reaction from dogs. Racing to the deck leading from our bedroom and the lounge, we saw a guy in our yard, our neighbour yelling to us and waving a torch and security reaction cars screeching into street, all at once. Intruder / Perpetrator / Robber / House Invasion man, had got onto their roof. When she pushed the panic button, he ran from security and sadly chose the worst direction, falling off the 2nd floor of their house, into our yard. That injured him badly. In the next bad choice, he decided to go over the steps wall outside our kitchen, without realising that it led to the level below. Again a big fall, smashing a little braai in the landing. By now he must have been adrenaline fuelled as he was badly injured and bleeding profusely. Our neighbour screamed that he was under our deck running towards our front door. Just before he got there he decided climbing onto the deck (to perhaps hide in house) was an option, running smack into Eugene and I, me then yelling to the 4 security guys way down below, who additionally arrived, to please jump our gate and help, as Eugene hung onto the guy (not wanting him to climb onto deck, but also not wanting him to fall back 2 metres onto cement stairs) and hanging onto our Malinois dog, who by their nature, protect at all costs. Being my husband he did not want the dog to attack the guy. I think it fortuitous that the guy did not have me holding the dog, because I wouldn’t have held the dog back. There was no way to know if intruder was armed.
It took the initial 3 buff security guys a helluva struggle to get intruder to let go as he had now wrapped his arms and legs around the balcony railings. Eventually, cuffed and lying on our deck, things hotted up - 6 security guys plus 4 SAP (this is why we live in the WC, things get done), searching him, searching the 2 yards for an accomplice or weapon. They then suddenly thought he had died before the paramedics got there. What followed appeared to be a resuscitation as they rushed in, a beeping heart machine, our 5 dogs going mad, a deck so full of people it looked like a party and a street filled with a multitude of colours of flashing lights.
When they eventually all left, an SAP related trauma counsellor was sent to our house at 11pm to speak to us. He reminded us that irrespective of the injuries, the man had made a choice to enter the initial property.
And then the bad part - me hosing down the deck to rid it of the blood, also on the railing and the wall below. Hubby on the other level, hosing down the bricks where he fell, the railing he had touched. This, this was the trauma. We had been adrenaline fuelled as well. Shouting for help, looking at the intruder, controlling the dogs, letting more and more people in the front door, showing people where they could wash blood off their hands, listening to the heart machine. As far as I have been able to ascertain, he did not survive the next 48 hours.
The deck is my place. I pray there in the morning. I meditate there with my first coffee. We watch every sunset and take photos. We revel in the sea in front of us. It has always been the highlight of our home. The next day we were both shell shocked, at how differently it could have ended if he had been armed when he climbed onto deck, of seeing him lying there, every time we looked at the deck.
Herein lay the mental fight though. The next day I went to walk on the beach (I love to be in the water - winter or summer), so I was knee deep in, taking photos as the tide went out. All I could think about was that the guy, when born, had been born to a happy mother, or a sad mother, or a mother that didn’t want him, or an adopted mother, who knew. But he entered the world in the same way I did, new and crying. I wondered what had happened to him between then and now. Where had his life gone so wrong. What drug fuelled state had kept him running and moving despite his injuries. Why was he unarmed and on their roof (the speculation of those in the know is that he was hoping to take a solar panel). In Gauteng you would have been held up. Where we stay, in our little area, we don’t hear of armed driveway hijackings, we don’t hear of armed invasions (in some suburbs around us yes, but not like the chaos of our previous Province, Gauteng) Now we have petty opportunistic theft yes. In our street alone there have been robberies of braais, garden furniture, bicycles and much more. One lady was held up, but they didn’t hurt her or threaten to do so. Simply took her TV and bank card and off they went. I could not stop wondering what if …. What if he had not run in the wrong direction and fell two stories ….. what if he was desperate and so the solar panel was an option …… what if the paramedics got there quicker ……. What if what if. Which is pretty daft hey. But my husband concurs. This was a human being.
Had he been armed, I would have felt differently I think, fight or flight I would have fought back with whatever it took. However this felt different.
So be vigilant people. It could have ended very differently.
I decided yesterday that the deck is my special place. There is still a stain that I cannot get off it. But it is my place, and I won’t let his memory taint that for me.
Till soon
c’est la vie
PS for some reason my posts of late 2023 and some of 2024 have disappeared on my profile. Weird.
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