Cape Town - A paramedic who was among the first on the scene after the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp said he entered Oscar Pistorius’s house and saw a woman’s body near the stairs, covered in blood.
The paramedic, who asked not to be named, said:
“There was a lot of activity at the house. The police were moving in and out and there were private security guards outside.
“When we arrived a woman, who never told us her name, met us in the driveway and showed us through the door. As soon as I walked in, I saw a woman’s body by the stairs and she was covered in blood. There was also a blood trail up the stairs that I could see. “Oscar Pistorius, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, was just standing there looking at the body. His right leg and arm were covered in blood.
“He looked rattled,” said the medic, adding that Steenkamp had been wearing a black sweat top and long pants, but no shoes.
“She was lying on her back at the bottom of the stairs and we were told that she had been shot upstairs, and that Oscar had carried her down to the bottom. She had sustained a gunshot wound to her head and her right arm.
“The house is really big and there was blood that had collected from her head wound on the polished floor.”
The medic said they immediately got to work on an already pale Steenkamp, who wasn’t breathing.
“When we attached the ECG (electro-cardiogram) monitor there was no sign of life, her heart had already stopped beating.”
The bullet that struck her arm had completely broken the bone.
The medic said Pistorius told them Steenkamp had stopped breathing three minutes before the ambulance arrived.
“She had lost a lot of blood. I could see the trail of blood stains on the stairs.”
The wounds were fatal, and there was nothing they could do for the model. She was declared dead at the scene.
“When we told Pistorius there was nothing we could do to save her, he started crying.”
The medic said he had not gone upstairs.
“As soon as we had done the declaration of the death, the police ushered us outside,” he said. - Sunday Argus