Submit your comment
The Zwartkop High School in Centurion will begin its academic year on Wednesday without its headgirl for 2008.
Tessa Strydom and Hanno Hardijzer, another Zwartkop pupil, were killed in a car accident early on Monday morning.
The accident happened close to Tessa's home; her parents heard the car rolling.
Wynand Dafel, Hanno's cousin, also died in the crash.
Tessa and Hanno, both 17, had been dating since Grade 9, according to Hanno's mother, Sonja.
She said Hanno always referred to Tessa as "the girl he was going to marry".
She described him as "a loveable guy with many friends."
Wynand Dafel, 20, and his family lived in Canada. He and his girlfriend came for a visit to South Africa and would have returned to Canada on Monday.
Continues Below ↓
Tessa and Hanno attended a farewell braai for Dafel in Rooihuiskraal on Sunday. After the braai, Dafel drove Tessa home. Sonja said Hanno had sent her an SMS, saying they would take Tessa home and he would sleep over at "Wynie's".
Dafel apparently lost control of the car on the Old Johannesburg Road in Clubview.
Witnesses said the accident happened near a garage, about 1km from Tessa's home.
They counted 17 marks were the car skidded and rolled, crashing over tree stumps and coming to a halt a few metres away from Tessa's home. The three young people were thrown from the car.
Tessa's mother, Susan, said she had called her daughter earlier that night, asking whether they should fetch her from the braai. Tessa had said her friends would drive her home. Her father, Johan, said that at about 1am he and Susan heard a loud noise in their street, which runs parallel to the Old Johannesburg Road.
"I went outside, meeting a neighbour who had also heard the noise.
"We found a car lying on its roof on the island between the two roads.
"There was no one inside," he said.
Susan tried to call Tessa again, but couldn't reach her.
Johan said: "I realised the children must be lying around here somewhere. I didn't want to see it, so I turned back.
"Just then other people arrived."
Paramedics on the scene did not want the parents to see the bodies of their children.
Susan called Hanno's brother, Marco, to tell him about the accident.
He and Sonja went to the scene, where they saw Dafel's uncle running to a huge tree stump. Marco followed. Sonja said: "Someone stopped me, saying I shouldn't look, it was ugly."
On Monday, Susan was supported by friends and staff of the school.
Her "laatlammetjie (last-born child) loved the Lord very much", she said.
"Tessa told me she knew something big was going to happen this year to bond the pupils.
"She wanted to eradicate this groupie thing and make them realise that no one was better than the others."
She described Tessa as a "sunshine child" who was loved by all. She was treasurer of the Junior City Council of Pretoria.
No funeral arrangements have been made yet, as Tessa's brother, who works on a ship, asked them to wait for him to get home.
Marco and his girlfriend, Yvette Venter, made a cross on Monday, painting on it the names "Hanno, Tessa, Wynand".
They planned to put it up at the scene of the accident.
"He lived life to the full," Marco said.
Trevor Kolk of LifeMed Ambulance Services said the three were declared dead on the scene.
The car was so badly damaged that they could not determine what make it was.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on January 08, 2008
|