Swellendam - The only survivor of the horror crash on the N2 that left eight correctional services staff dead appeared distraught as she bid farewell to her colleagues on Tuesday.
Ezona Mert was one of the close to 3 000 family, friends and colleagues of the prison staff who attended their memorial service at the Swellendam Show Grounds on Tuesday.
Mert, walking on crutches, only had a few visible scratches on her hands.
While Mert did not want to say much, she did say that she was “fine”.
Mert and her colleagues were on their way to the Buffeljagsrivier when the crash occurred around 7am last Tuesday. Her colleagues who died were Ronzio Merrington, 39; Joseph Klaase, 49; Sidwell Johnson 40; Nocolas Jansen, 49; Frederick Carstens 53; Bunet Brandt, 53; Dawid Arries, 41 and Josephine Gertze, 52.
On Tuesday, their emotional families lit candles in their honour and paid tributes to their loved ones.
Gertze’s brother, John Mathyssen, said he was in pain following his sister’s death.
“As much as it deeply hurts me to be paying tribute to my sister, there is no better person I could pay tribute to. She was a wonderful person,” said Mathyssen.
He explained that he heard of her death while getting ready to go to work on the morning she died. “We were one of the first people on the scene. When we got there an ambulance was leaving at a very high speed and a policeman told us she had left with the ambulance,” he said.
By the time he got to the hospital, the family members were already there waiting for doctors to tell them about her condition.
At the time, any sign of life would have been welcomed, said Mathyssen.
He said the wait in hospital reminded him of two months earlier when his family nearly lost their brother in a car accident.
“The medical staff came out with horrifying news that they had lost their battle to save my sister’s life. I just walked away,” he said.
Mathyssen said he would remember his sister as the “remarkable person” she was to her family. “This must have been the most painful Mother’s Day for my sister’s children because for the first time they spent the day without their mother. But as a family we decided to spend the day together.”
Deputy Minister for Correctional Services Thabang Makwetla expressed condolences from the minister, adding that the crash was a huge tragedy that had cost the lives of valuable staff members.
He added that the government and the correctional services shared in the families’ pain.
Buffeljagsrivier Correctional Centre’s acting head, Shadrack Jass, said it was an horrific accident that saw the centre lose their family members. “We not only regard ourselves as colleagues but as a family... that’s how close we are at the centre.”
Cape Argus