Johannesburg - The torching of a fire truck in Katlehong continues a series of attacks on emergency personnel and their vehicles in parts of Ekurhuleni.
The hijacking and damaging of emergency vehicles, including ambulances and fire engines, as well as the assault of paramedics and firefighters, appears to have become the order of the day.
So bad is the problem that ambulances no longer enter the Angelo informal settlement in Boksburg.
Instead, a number of pick-up points have been identified in the area where the ambulances stop and wait for a patient to be brought to them because their safety can no longer be guaranteed.
Ekurhuleni Emergency Services spokesperson Willie Ntladi said they were holding talks with community leaders to try to find a way to ensure the safety of emergency workers and municipal property at the informal settlement.
He said another option would be to ask for police escorts, but the reality was that they could not always wait for the police.
Ntladi said the attacks were having a major impact on staff, who were living in fear of being assaulted.
“We want people to know the challenges that we, as emergency services personnel, experience.
“Our main objective is to preserve the lives of citizens and save their properties from the horror of fire.
“The remedy is to go back and engage with community leaders and explain to them that we can’t pull out our services because it’s the services they need and want,” he said.
Ntladi was supported by his counterpart at Johannesburg Emergency Management Services, Robert Mulaudzi.
In August last year, Joburg firefighters had their fire engine stoned when they came across a protest and a barricaded road after attending to a fire in Meadowlands.
The protesters then torched the fire engine as the firefighters fled.
Mulaudzi said the fire engine, including the equipment inside it, cost over R4 million and had not been replaced.
There have also been attacks on the Joburg Emergency Management Services ambulance crew this year, where they have been held up and robbed.
In some instances, the attacks occurred while they were treating patients.
“This affects response time because if you have to respond, you start thinking of going via the police.
“Then when you get to the police station, they probably don’t have vehicles and you have to wait. Then that creates a delay, and those who need the service suffer.
“The people we are helping are supposed to protect us,” Mulaudzi added.
Other incidents
- September 4, Katlehong: Residents prevent firefighters from putting out a shack fire; the community then set the fire engine alight.
- August 28, Daveyton fire station: Two shots are fired through the glass doors of the station, breaking two of them.
- August 13, Primrose fire station: A man stones the glass doors of the station, breaking them. He was angry paramedics had rushed him to hospital when he was ill but failed to take him home.
- June 13, Angelo informal settlement: Residents attack an ambulance with pangas and break its windows.
- December 2015, Tembisa: Robbers hijack an ambulance and then crash into a shack.
- December 2015, Katlehong: Residents attacks paramedics treating suspects of a triple murder, pulling the suspects from the ambulance as they were being treated and damaging the ambulance.
- September 2015, Thokoza: Ambulance crew robbed at gunpoint while responding to an emergency; female paramedic touched inappropriately.
The Star