A Durban couple’s joyful wait for the arrival of their first baby ended in tragedy this week when a man who claimed to be an e-hailing service driver beat up the woman in a fit of road rage - causing her to lose her child.
Carrie Wilson, 32, said she was at a traffic light on the corner of Tara and Quality Streets in Wentworth last Saturday when “my baby was murdered”.
She alleges that the driver of a silver Toyota Etios was angry because she took too long at a traffic light.
He then jumped out of the car, took a knobkierie out of his boot and ran towards her vehicle.
“I got out of my car because I thought he would calm down when he saw I was a woman. But he said ‘F***k you’ and hit me on my head with the first blow. Then he beat me on my arms as I tried to protect my stomach. He left me covered in blood,” Wilson said.
She said the occupants in the car behind her attacker’s jumped out and attacked him while she grabbed his car keys so that he could not escape.
She phoned her fiancé Delano Peters who sped to the scene and took her to Wentworth Hospital where they were told that the baby’s heartbeat was faint. Wilson said they consulted a private gynaecologist on the Monday but the doctor could not detect a heartbeat.
“I couldn’t accept that my baby was dead. Then we went to a GP and he said the same thing.”
Wilson was referred back to Wentworth Hospital where labour was induced.
“I went into labour for ten and a half hours to give birth to a dead baby. It was devastating,” she said.
Colonel Thembeka Mbele confirmed a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm had been opened at Brighton Beach Police Station.
Traffic authorities warned that road rage incidents would increase over the festive season.
Last night, e-hailing site Uber said its Incident Response Team had looked into the number plate of the vehicle used by
the attacker but it was not registered on its database.