{"id":8995,"date":"2013-08-13T07:07:51","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T07:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=8995"},"modified":"2013-08-13T07:08:08","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T07:08:08","slug":"suicide-in-kzn-fitness-test-recounted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=8995","title":{"rendered":"Suicide in KZN fitness test recounted"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bleep\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

“He told me he was a failure and he deserved to die,” Emergency Medical Rescue Services supervisor Agrinette Shoba said.<\/p>\n

“He was lying on his right side… 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.<\/p>\n

Shoba was testifying before a commission of inquiry in Pietermaritzburg about the death of Sanele Ngcobo, who was found with a 13cm wound across his neck after taking part in the fitness test.<\/p>\n

The commission is probing the deaths of eight people who took part in a four kilometre run at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg.<\/p>\n

\n

The race 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.<\/p>\n

Shoba said she was called by a young man, who told her there was someone outside the stadium who was screaming and bleeding. She went to investigate and found Ngcobo.<\/p>\n

“There were no signs indicating that there was a struggle. He had the bottle neck on his neck, half of the bottle was behind him,” Shoba said.<\/p>\n

“I commented on how he was smartly dressed and how he did not seem to come from a poor family. I said I see no reason for him to do something so painful.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Shoba said when she spoke to Ngcobo he was cutting himself and he could understand what was going on.<\/p>\n

His eyes were open, he could respond to instructions and he was verbally responsive.<\/p>\n

“I could see how deep his wound was as he was talking, I could see bubbles coming out of his wound, his trachea was cut,” she said.<\/p>\n

In July, Ngcobo’s aunt ,Thembi, told the commission that her nephew was desperate to find a job because he wanted to take over raising his son.<\/p>\n

Shoba described the participants treated at the stadium as being dehydrated, hysterical and disorientated.<\/p>\n

“They were seeing things that no other people could see. Others claimed to see their men coming to fetch them,” she said. – Sapa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Shoba said. “He was lying on his right side… holding a broken … Continue reading “Suicide in KZN fitness test recounted”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[5048,146,2508],"class_list":["post-8995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-kwazulu-natal-road-traffic-inspectorate-rti-fitness-test","tag-samsung","tag-suicide"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/bleep.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8997,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8995\/revisions\/8997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}