Durban - A decorated Empangeni police dog handler, left paralysed after a shoot-out with criminals in 2001, has died from complications linked to his injury.
Captain Errol Tustin was following up on information in iNyoni in the Ilembe District Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal, when a suspect shot him in the throat with a 9mm pistol in July 2001.
He was 31 at the time.
Tustin, who had been in pain since the incident, died on Wednesday evening. He was 45.
A friend, Dieter Kramer, said Tustin made the most of what was possible and lived every moment of every day for Christ.
Tustin beat the odds when in 2004 his rehabilitation allowed him to do an office job for the police.
Five years later, he fell down the stairs and injured his hip and lower back. Tustin was left in severe pain and medically boarded.
After 14 surgeries and seemingly endless drug treatments at hospitals across the country, Tustin went home and had to readjust his life.
Friends on Facebook started a trust fund to help him pay his medical bills.
Cedric Carr, a fellow dog handler and veterinarian, said members banded together to raise money.
Sue Parrot, a close friend, said she knew Tustin as a sprightly, dapper, ambitious twentysomething, with his life ahead of him.
“His incredible work ethic, personal integrity and enthusiasm to serve the community was undoubtedly indicative that he’d have a highly-successful SAPS career, easily rising to a senior position.
“This career was Errol’s dream, it was the breath he took every moment of his life,” Parrot said.
“Errol was a policeman through to the marrow in his bones. One cannot imagine the trauma of having that dream taken away in the nanosecond it took for a bullet to shatter his body and his life,” she said.
Parrot said Tustin had written about his immense pain, and how even wearing clothes irritated his skin.
Tustin wrote that God had given him a second chance, and in 2003, exceeding his doctors’ wildest expectations, he improved and could walk short distances. But in 2009, his condition suddenly worsened and he became bedridden.
“His determination was such that, I feel sure, had he received the necessary support from the system, he would still be playing an active role in the police today,” Parrot said.
“The courage it took for Errol to get up each morning, from a sleepless night, and motivate himself to live another pain-eroded day, is beyond comprehension,” Parrot said.
Tustin’s immediate family were unavailable for comment.
A memorial service for him will be held in Vryheid next Wednesday.
Daily News
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