Cop’s seizure brings tragedy

011-Grieving mother of six month old baby, Tshiamo, Slyvia Letsholo, said she has forgiven the driver but will never forget the fatal car accident that left her son dead and three other children with serious injuries. Meadolands Soweto 16.08.2012 Picture:Dumisani Dube

011-Grieving mother of six month old baby, Tshiamo, Slyvia Letsholo, said she has forgiven the driver but will never forget the fatal car accident that left her son dead and three other children with serious injuries. Meadolands Soweto 16.08.2012 Picture:Dumisani Dube

Published Aug 17, 2012

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IT IS quiet in the Letsholo home. Sad, tired faces greet us as we enter the gate.

People move through the house – sit, eat, say a few words and offer comfort. But for Sylvia Letsholo, 39, the house is unbearably quiet.

“I keep hearing his cries when he refuses to eat and his laughter when I put him in his washing basin,” says Letsholo, sitting on a bed next to her mother, her face red from crying.

On Monday morning, her six-month-old son Tshiamo was killed when a Joburg metro police (JMPD) officer, who apparently suffers from epilepsy, had a seizure, lost control of his car and hit Letsholo and the four children who were with her.

Yesterday, the family buried Tshiamo at the Avalon cemetery in Soweto.

The accident occurred when Letsholo and her three children, Utlwanang, 9, Oratile, 5, and Tshiamo, as well as her niece Mmathapelo, 17, had taken a 2km walk from Meadowlands Zone 1 to the SA Social Security Agency offices in Mzimhlophe to re-register the children for social grants.

Close to their destination, Letsholo decided to dodge some overflowing sewage and take a slightly different route.

It cost her her child’s life.

Letsholo says she has forgiven the driver, but wants him to take responsibility for the pain he has caused the family.

She doesn’t know his name. However, the family have opened a case against the driver.

JMPD spokeswoman Edna Mamonyane said the department had removed the officer from driving duties.

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