Danie Robbertse, a former police officer of Pretoria, was shot three times on Friday May 29, 2015, after fierce fighting to protect his fiancée and her daughter during a farm attack near Buffelspoort in Northwest.
The couple lives in Mooinooi and Amanda Brooks’s daughter, Alicia Harmse (26), lives with her husband on a farm near Buffelspoort where the attack took place.
“Alicia’s husband was away from home, due to work obligations. Each time he left for work, Danie and I stay with her, “Brooks said.
Account of what happened during the robbery and afterwards in hospital described in Amanda Brooks’s own words:
“My love my HERO. Every day you read about robberies and burglaries and all these things but not really realizing how bad it is until you do go through it.
Midnight of the 29th of May, they broke into my daughter Alicia’s house at Buffelspoort while we slept. I woke up from a sound in the kitchen, got up and went to look.
I told Danie something was not right at the back door, the entire bottom of the door (it is a double door), half stood inward. Danie wanted to go and look and I showed him he must not open.
On walking there they had heard us then. They kicked the door in and immediately opened fire. Me and Danie ran to the door and grabbed the piece of the door and pushed it back with all our might by trying to keep them out.
I screamed and ran to Alicia and shouted her to stay in her room and call, ran back and Danie has kept the door to fight to keep them out. They shot him through the upper part of the door, but he did not give in. I saw them shooting him and thought it was in his chest and realized now I will have to fight harder to protect my daughter.
I kept shouting at her to stay away. We kept fighting through the shots.
The one attacker pushed the piece of the board half away and the slipped through. He dropped the gun attacked Danie and pushed him into a room. He attacked Danie with a piece of the board by where Danie got a golf pitcher and beat him with it.
At that time, the lower part of the door was completely open and the other attacker tried to back away half his face there, but he kept firing and reloaded and kept on firing. I went to a bench in the kitchen from witch the top were loose grabbed it and hit the attacker from behind so I could get him off Danie and try to kick away the gun and stopped him from not shooting Danie further.
He grabbed the gun again and pointed it at me and pushed me back into the kitchen where I threw him with the whole bench. He jumped half over the table and with the gun at me straight to the kitchen cabinet where Alicia’s new tablet was lying, went and took it, to the other cabinet and took her handbag.
Hence he was in our room and took me and Danie’s cellphones of our bedside tables. I kept screaming and crying for help, at that time I did not know whether there were any bullets left in the pistol. The attacker was then just as quickly back out the door, while the other still fired shots.
Alicia called where she always hid in her room. Suddenly they fled. Danie stood at the room’s doorway, I went to him and saw he was wounded in the shoulder and in both his thighs. I helped him to walk to the kitchen, so he could sit on a bench, but when we were in the kitchen door his legs collapsed under him.
That’s when I realized his leg and his arm is broken. I made him comfortable on the floor, and took the club and stood watch at the door were I was waiting for help, and to stop as they might come back. That was my biggest fear, will they come back? My child is still there.
It all happened so fast, and yet it felt like hours. Help arrived and I could breathe. Alicia’s father in law, the neighborhood watch and the farmers arrived. They could not get hold Marikana police. My son from Mooinooi came through and stopped at Mooinooi police station and contacted Marikana.
The ambulance was called and they had arrived with my son. We were taken by ambulance to Brits hospital and we waited until a doctor could see Danie. X-rays was taken and he was transferred to Dr. George Mukhari hospital in GaRankuwa because they could not help him in Brits.
At George Mukhari he had to wait until Thursday before they operated on him. On Wednesday of the 3rd June we put in a complaint because they took so long and one o’clock in the morning of the 4th they operated. They put a pin in the right thigh and his upper arm.
The Dr was very good for him and his wounds look very nice. The only thing that bothered him was the staff and the patients lying there. He says they ignored him many times when he called they walked past him mumble something about whitey and walked on.
I sat there that they came in and they spoke in their language but no English so the whites lying there could understand. If he asks for something or why they did not come to clean his wounds, it is said, but they asked why he did not answer.
Wednesday after I left they left him lying there in the cold to nine o’clock in the evening with just a thin sheet over him. I briefly chatted with him on my phone to see if they have given him warmer blankets, and every time he said he cried but they do not show up at all.
The night shift staff put buckets beside their beds for them to pee and so was it until the next morning, or they have the TV on loudly and sat talking until twelve at night with lights on so that the patients could not sleep.
The day Danie were dismissed they said he should be transported back with an ambulance to Brits, and Brits hospital should dismiss him. When we waited at the hospital they had him got up on a bus without warm clothes, in their pajamas and he were not allowed to step on the leg for two months.
They did not even help him off when the bus stopped, and I had a friend helping him in a wheelchair, where they sat and laughed and chatted.
Danie was cold and the sweat was running from him, I was very worried about him. We waited three hours for them just to dismiss him.
I brought him home and helped him into bed. The next day, the tears ran freely, he said it was so bad to lie there in hospital, and he is so grateful to be at home.
We are so grateful that we are still alive, and that our Heavenly Father kept us in His hands that night.”
South Africa Today – South Africa News
