Pretoria - The distraught father of a three-year-old toddler who was killed when his head was crushed by a steel gate, said seeing his son slowly dying would haunt him forever.
“I am finished. A huge part of me is dead. To lose my son like this, I wish it was me.
“No parent should see their child die,” Tom Kazambe said.
The boy, Tom Kazambe Junior, 3, was playing with a friend outside a dilapidated house where his parents are renting a room in Erasmia when the incident happened.
He said his son died after suffering severe head trauma. The boy’s head had been cut open and parts of his brain exposed.
“The doctors said there was nothing they could do for him. They tried, but it was his time.”
His wife, Alan, was admitted to Laudium Hospital after their son was pronounced dead. A neighbour who rushed the boy and his mother to hospital said she had heard the mother running up the driveway screaming for help.
“Alan was covered with blood all over and her son’s head was crushed open from the forehead. He was foaming from the mouth. I told her to jump into my car and we flew to hospital,” she said.
The gate which fell on the boy was still lying on the ground, and his blood could still be seen when the Pretoria News visited the scene on Wednesday. The toddler and his friend, who also sustained head injuries and was still in hospital, were playing near the gate. Tom Junior apparently shook the already unsteady gate, sending it crashing down on top of them. The top part of the gate struck his head, and he was found unconscious while his friend was trapped beneath it.
At that time, news of the boy’s death had not reached the tenants who share the property with the Kazambes.
They spoke of the boy being playful and intelligent.
Naomi Dalo, a tenant, said at the time of the incident, she prayed that he would recover.
However, moments later, Kazambe came back home and broke the news to them.
The women were crying hysterically while Kazambe was evidently shattered.
Kazambe, who sells second-hand clothing to support his family, said he regretted going to work in the morning.
“I shouldn’t have gone to work today (on Wednesday). I knew something would go wrong when I lost my cellphone this morning (Wednesday).
“I should have just stayed and looked after him,” he said.
The 39-year-old said he moved from Malawi to South Africa in the hope of finding a job which would help to sustain him and his family. Kazambe also has an older son.
Pretoria News
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