Johannesburg - Dian McKechnie has not had the best of luck with cars in the past four months.
In the latest incident, McKechnie was trapped inside her 2005 Land Rover Discovery on Tuesday morning when the vehicle shut down and the electrics stopped working.
“I couldn’t get out the car, I couldn’t open the windows or doors,” McKechnie said.
She was going to work early on Tuesday morning when the car’s GPS screen flashed with a “system shut down” message. It then went dead at an intersection in Crown City and all the electrics, including the windows and hazard lights, would not work.
“Everybody was hooting at me and shouting at me, but there was nothing I could do,” McKechnie said. She was trapped for half an hour.
After her escape, she
questioned her luck with vehicles since she normally didn’t drive the Discovery, but her husband said the car could use a run.
Her car was written off in July when a truck smashed into the back of her and two months ago, she was the victim of a smash-and-grab.
McKechnie praised her colleagues, who fortunately saw her as they drove past, and a Joburg metro police officer, who all helped her escape.
BAFFLED
“When I was passing I saw it was her so I had to do a U-turn and come back,” said colleague Johannes Thamane.
“We tried to open the doors and the boot but they were all locked,” added another colleague, Dannyboy Madolo.
They are all baffled because after several attempts to open the doors, a metro police officer managed to open one of the back doors.
McKechnie said she was “never so pleased” to see her colleagues and wanted their managers to know why they would be late for work.
Despite the experience, she was grateful it had happened here and not on a trip through Africa that she was planning with her husband.
“Imagine this had happened somewhere in the bush,” she said.
Metro police spokesman Wayne Minnaar could not be reached for comment.
The Star