Windsorton, Northern Cape - A 60-year-old woman was brutally attacked with a crowbar on a plot outside Windsorton when three armed robbers invaded her home.
Beulah Nel, who was admitted to the intensive care unit of Kimberley MediClinic shortly after the attack, was on Monday moved to a general ward.
Nel believes that pretending to be dead, while her attackers savagely assaulted her with a crowbar, is the only reason why she managed to escape with her life.
The intruders removed a bar from the main gate to gain entrance to the property, where Nel lives with her husband, Hennie, and climbed into the house through a window early on Saturday morning.
“I woke up with a torchlight shining in my eyes and jumped with surprise,” a still visibly stunned Nel said. “Our dog had been poisoned and there were three men with balaclavas inside the house. The man who was standing over me then hit me on the head for the first time.”
Nel said that she was particularly concerned for the safety of her husband, Hennie, as an amputated leg has left him confined to a wheelchair, limiting his mobility.
“I was concerned about Hennie’s safety because we were not in the same room. I begged and pleaded with the robbers to leave ‘the oupa’ but they just carried on hitting me. They stomped on my chest and started kicking me repeatedly and eventually I realised that the only way that I was going to get them to stop was to pretend that I was dead.”
Nel’s husband then entered the room. Talking from her bedside on Monday, he said he was mortified when he saw his wife’s motionless body on the floor. Hennie was also attacked.
“They tried to hit me a few times but I managed to deflect the blows so I was fortunately not that badly hurt. I also began to plead with them to take what they wanted but not harm us. During this time I was terrified that my wife was already dead. We were tied up and they managed to get away with cash, jewellery and firearms.”
Despite the fact that the suspects managed to get onto the property and into the house, the chicken farmer believes that the situation may well have been far worse had it not been for security measures inside the house.
“We have security gates throughout the house which meant that their access was limited. The three men were relatively calm and spoke softly in Tswana so we could not understand what they were saying. The one thing I did understand was when one of the robbers told another to go into the kitchen and boil water, however he was unable to access the kitchen because of a gate. I think they wanted to torture us.”
Beulah sustained numerous lacerations and bruises to the head and torso and has undergone X-Rays and an MRI scan. She is currently recovering in hospital but said that she was looking forward to returning to Windsorton as soon as possible.
“One moment I am extremely weak and the next I’m fine. I’m not afraid of going home after this incident, but we are very glad to have escaped with our lives.”
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