Durban - As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence draws to a close tomorrow, the end of the campaign comes with some uplifting news for a Northern KwaZulu-Natal teacher whose boyfriend attacked her with a bush knife.
Happiness Nxumalo, 35, underwent surgery at St Augustine’s Hospital to try to salvage her right hand on Thursday.
Nxumalo was taken to a local clinic in Jozini after she called neighbours for help as she lay in a pool of blood on Monday. Her left arm was severed, and her right hand hung by tissue.
The incident occurred in the presence of Nxumalo’s 2-year-old daughter, Siphosethu.
Nxumalo’s boyfriend, who believed she was dead after he attacked her with a bush knife, hanged himself.
Nxumalo lost her left arm from below her elbow. She sustained multiple cuts to her arm, a deep cut to her back, seven wounds to her head and a fractured skull. On her right arm she sustained a cut that left her hand hanging by a piece of tissue. Her nerves and a major artery that supplies blood to the hand were also affected.
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Steven Msimango said the surgery to her right arm had gone well and the main tendons used to extend the hand had been successfully rejoined.
“We managed to put some wire into her bones and managed to join all the broken bones in her right hand. She’s a very positive lady,” he said.
He said she would need further surgery to repair nerve damage.
“First we needed to make sure the limb can survive. We have established it is viable and we can save it. We needed to stabilise the bone and now we can do other surgeries and then close the wound,” Msimango said.
Nxumalo said her partner had been abusive. She said she had not dated him for long and he was not the father of her children.