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NINEMETRE FALL: APPARENTLY NOT THE FIRST
Man’s fall: safety issue raised LEANDI CLAASEN @greenava
Z
amelekhaya Socenywa, who miraculously survived a ninemetre fall at a construction site two weeks ago, was apparently scared to get onto the scaffolding he fell from, because he suspected that it was not secure. According to Richard Adonis, one of the painters present at the time of the incident on Clarendon Street Richard Adonis in Parow, Socenywa was scared to get onto the scaffolding, but was allegedly told by his boss that the job needed to be done. “We all warned them not to go onto that unsteady thing (scaffolding), but they would not listen,” explains Adonis, who works at the same construction site, but for a different company to Socenywa.
Second accident Adonis also alleged that Socenywa is actually the second worker who has fallen Kobus Daries from the building site in the space of just four months. Socenywa’s employer, Gavin Bokhorst, who initially gave a different name of his company to TygerBurger, denied claims of a previous fall at the same site. TygerBurger’s recent visit to the building site revealed a chilling picture of the hazardous conditions facing workers from Qualicoat Painting, Decorating & Waterproofing.
Upon TygerBurger’s arrival two Qualicoat workers were about nine metres in the air on a ladder that was shaking unsteadily in the wind, while one man at the bottom was desperately trying to keep it in his grip.
Afraid When asked whether he was afraid that the ladder would fall, he said he did not want to speak to the media. Kobus Daries, one of the other painters on the site said he was also present on the day of the incident. “I heard the scaffold collapse and saw him (Socenywa) lying there in a pool of blood. I thought he was dead. But after seconds he moved,” Daries said. According to Daries, Socenywa was doing waterproofing on the third floor on the day of the incident. Bokhorst told TygerBurger that Socenywa fell from a ladder and not scaffolding as was reported. This, after he explained at length on the day of the incident that the “scaffolding my worker fell from was secure,” and that the fall was just a terrible accident. ER24 paramedics, who stabilised Socenywa at the scene of the accident, before transporting him to N1 City Hospital, also confirmed that the 30-year-old Socenywa fell from scaffolding. V To page 2.
Qualicoat workers, at the site where Socenywa fell two weeks ago, are nine metres in the air on a ladder that was shaking unsteadily in the wind. PHOTO: LEANDI CLAASEN