Cape Town - A Cape Town man says he wouldn’t be alive it wasn’t for his cellphone.
Siraaj Abrahams, 41, says a bullet meant for his heart slammed into the cellphone instead.
The father of five say he was returning home from a birthday party on Saturday night at about 11pm when he was attacked by robbers in front of his home in Schaapkraal.
The businessman, who owns two companies in the IT and auto industries, was sitting in his Hyundai bakkie, waiting for his electric gates to open when a man pulled his door open.
Abrahams said: “I didn’t even see it coming; the first one just pulled open the door. He pulled me out of the bakkie and we began to struggle.
“During the struggle, the second one, who was two metres away, fired a shot at me.”
Abrahams lost consciousness, not realising that his Huawei P8 Light cellphone, which was in his left chest pocket, had caught the 9mm bullet.
The robbers fled the scene with R300 cash.
Abrahams’s 16-year-old daughter, who returned home from a friend, found her father lying outside his car.
Abrahams said: “When I woke, I just felt this burning feeling over my chest and felt to see where it was and if there was blood.”
His neighbour and friend Faried Bhyat, 48, said he examined Siraaj on the scene. “I saw the bullet had hit the phone and ricocheted out.”
All Abrahams has to show for his “near death” experience is a tiny mark on his chest and a hole in his jacket where the bullet struck. “If it had not been for the cellphone, I would have died because it would have hit my heart.”
His wife Shamiela said her husband had been saved in act of “divine intervention”.
“He was wearing a tracksuit pants and couldn’t find the top and put on the old jacket which has broken pockets,” she said.
“He was also going to leave his cellphone at home because the battery was flat but decided he would charge it at his friend’s.
“So because the pockets was broken, he had to place the phone in the top pocket.”
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Andre Traut confirmed the incident and says the suspects were still at large.
Daily Voice