“I fought for my life as I swam the murky waters of the Duzi in pitch darkness,” says one of the teenagers who was in the car.
|||Pietermaritzburg - Four friends escaped with their lives when the car they were travelling in was swept off a low-level bridge over the flooded Msunduzi River in Pietermaritzburg at the weekend.
They were taking a short cut to go to a party on Saturday night.
“I fought for my life as I swam the murky waters of the Duzi in pitch darkness,” 16-year-old Paulette Morajane said on Sunday.
The Grade 11 Alexandra High School pupil was in the Toyota Tazz with her friends - Sisane Molefe, 26, her sister Thembisile, 21, and Mxolisi Nene, 20 - when they were washed off the bridge on Woodhouse Road.
Nene, who had been driving, said she had realised too late that the river level had risen, after three days of heavy rains.
“I felt a strong current and decided to reverse out of the water, but the current was so strong that when I reversed it pulled the car forward and it spun,” she said.
“My friends were screaming and managed to open the windows before the car went under the water.”
Molefe said: “I just screamed and shouted as I was being washed downstream in the strong currents and said: ‘I am going to die.’ But I plucked up courage and swam to the side to the banks.”
Despite the “No entry” sign on the bridge, vehicles were still crossing the swollen river, where police divers were searching for the friends’ car on Sunday.
It was found submerged about 500m from the bridge
. - Daily News