Suicide in KZN fitness test recounted

 

A paramedic saw a man cutting his own throat after he failed a KwaZulu-Natal Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) fitness test, an inquiry heard on Monday.

   

"He told me he was a failure and he deserved to die," Emergency Medical Rescue Services supervisor Agrinette Nomathemba Lindi Shoba said.

   

"He was lying on his right side of his body, he was holding a broken beer bottle in his right hand and he had grabbed his throat with his left hand and he was continuing to cut himself, at that stage he was bleeding profusely," Shoba said.

   

Shoba was testifying before a commission of inquiry in Pietermaritzburg about Sanele Ngcobo who was found with a 13cm wound across his neck after taking part in the fitness test.

   

The commission is probing the deaths of eight people who took part in a four kilometre run at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg.

   

This formed part of a fitness test for RTI job applicants. More than 34,000 people qualified to apply for 90 advertised RTI trainee posts. Of these, 15,600 attended a fitness test on December 27 and a similar number on December 28.

   

Shoba said she was called by a young man who told her there was someone outside the stadium who was screaming and bleeding.

   

She investigated and found Ngcobo lying on his right side, holding a broken beer bottle and cutting himself.

   

At the time of his death, Ngcobo was in his final year of study for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Zululand. He was  also the father of a three-month-old boy. The inquiry continues.

   

-Sapa