Cape Town - A Bonteheuwel nurse has plastic bowls to thank for her life.
The 48-year-old nurse is one of three people who were caught in gang crossfire on Sunday night.
The medical professional was on her way home after a 12-hour shift when bullets struck the bowls she was carrying just metres from her home.
On Monday, the family showed the Daily Voice the two bowls and the cooler bag nurse Desiree McKenzie was carrying when she was hit by two bullets just after 7pm in Taaibos Road.
“If the bullet didn’t go through these bakkies (bowls), it would have hit Desiree, so these bakkies (bowls) saved her life,” said her mother, who did not want to be named.
Residents say Hard Livings gang members were shooting at rivals the Oka Boys, injuring three innocent bystanders, including Desiree and a 13-year-old boy.
Desiree, a nurse at Melomed Hospital in Gatesville, was hit in the stomach.
A second bullet ripped through her cooler bag, and two lunch bowls, leaving large holes in its wake.
Desiree’s mother said she shouted at her grandson, 14, to come inside when she heard the shots.
“My grandson was standing outside by the wall when they were shooting. He turned to me and said, ‘Ma they just shot a woman’ ('Grandmother, they just shot a woman’). Then he said, ‘Ma it’s my mother!’ (‘Grandmother, it’s my mother!')” the traumatised grandmother explains.
She ran out and saw someone holding her injured daughter.
Desiree’s son tried to carry his bleeding mom home, but the granny rushed him back inside because the gangster came back.
“When I got to her, she told me she was feeling hot, pointing to her waist were she had been shot.
“Then she passed out and fell to the ground,” the grandmother added.
She said the crooks then opened fire on cops who arrived on the scene before running off.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut says a 13-year-old boy was injured when a bullet grazed his left ear.
Traut said: “It is suspected that the victims were caught in the crossfire of rival gangs.
“The circumstances are being investigated and no one has been arrested as yet.”
The family said on Monday night that Desiree “was is in good spirits” at Groote Schuur Hospital.
The mom will be going for an operation on Tuesday, to remove the bullet from her stomach.