YUSUF MOOLLA
A drive home at 4am became a nightmare for a couple when a brick was thrown at their car, hitting the driver’s door frame before smashing the rear window, on the M19 towards Pinetown, yesterday.
Theo Wyenberg is lucky to be alive, and may have been saved by having his window open. The brick flew through the open window, passed between his head and the car pillar where the seat belt is attached, deflected off the headrest and crashed into the rear window.
“It was frightening. All my wife and I heard was a loud crash.”
Wyenberg and his wife Tina had been returning from an evening with friends. They pulled over shortly after hearing the crash.
“I walked around the car and saw no damage in the front, but when I went to the back I saw the windscreen had been shattered. A brick was found above the back seat.”
Wyenberg went to the Pinetown police station to open a case. He had been travelling on the M19 just before the Reservoir Hills turn-off, adjacent to an informal settlement.
He believes the brick was thrown from the median of the road.
“I recalled that, a few metres from the impact, there were two youngsters on the side of the road and it occurred to me they wanted me to stop to rob me.
“It was so fast I did not even know that (the brick) passed my head, but if I was a little closer to the window my head would have looked like a tenderised steak. We are still shocked and frightened. If I’d had passengers, they would have been killed.”
Police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Mdunge said a case of malicious damage to property was opened.
“We urge drivers to be mindful and alert. We know of this thug behaviour and we have lost a life in such a manner,” referring to the death of Siphesihle Zola, 24, when a concrete slab struck the car in which she was travelling near the Spaghetti Junction in November.
Wyenberg, who was stabbed and hijacked two years ago, urged people to be vigilant and refrain from using the M19 at night.
“This country is so beautiful, why must there be so much crime?”