Medic gets 30% injury damages

PARAMEDIC Morne Rossouw was chasing after robbers in Roodepoort when driver Charles Graham knocked him over, causing him severe injury.

This week the case came before the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where Graham said he had acted in self-defence when he deliberately ran down Rossouw in July, 2015, because he had thought he was being hijacked.

Rossouw, 45, who lives in Krugersdorp, sustained multiple fractures and suffers from mental confusion. He remembers nothing of the accident. His wife, Elmarie, instituted a claim for more than R4 million against the Road Accident Fund on her husband’s behalf and later a curator had to be appointed to manage his affairs.

A colleague, identified as JS Machailo, who was on duty on the day of the accident, told the court how he had been driving the car with Rossouw as a passenger when they heard of a robbery that had just happened.

When they saw suspects walking down Corlett Avenue, Rossouw asked Machailo to drive past so that he could approach them from the front. Rossouw got out of the car with his firearm raised.

He signalled to an approaching car behind him to stop, so that he could cross the road to confront the suspects.

Graham, who was with his family in his car, said when he saw the man with the gun he was convinced he was being hijacked. He said he had feared for the safety of his wife and two children and decided to run Rossouw down.

The RAF, under the circumstances, offered to pay Rossouw 30% of the damages he could prove that he had suffered. The curator advised Rossouw to accept this offer.

In terms of the RAF Act, compensation is due to be paid in the case where the victim’s injury is caused by the wrongful act by the driver of the car that caused the accident. However, the circumstances of this case differed vastly from those in a “normal” accident.

Rossouw had worked as a paramedic in Iraq before the accident. His wife described him as a friendly and sociable person before the accident, but now he had poor memory, was short-tempered, irritable, impatient, impulsive and aggressive, she said.

In terms of the settlement, Rossouw will receive R478 120.