Mom: ‘I lost everyone I love’
Lunelle is the only survivor of a car accident that claimed the lives of the four people she loved most in the world
SOMEONE once told her a mother would feel it in her bones the moment her child died. “It’s not true. My heart only broke when they told me my son was gone,” says Lunelle Kotzee (38), wiping away tears – something she’s been doing often in the past two months.
Her world turned upside down when the four people she loved most in the world died in a car crash on 3 January. She was in the car too, the sole survivor of a catastrophe that followed an idyllic holiday when life felt uncomplicated and happiness and togetherness seemed guaranteed.
Now she has to find a way to pick up the pieces and face life alone. “It’s a physical pain,” she says, touching her chest. “It feels as if someone’s flattening my heart. Even breathing hurts.”
Lunelle, a credit controller, and her loved ones were on their way back to their home in Heidelberg, Gauteng, after a festive season break in Ballito, KwaZuluNatal, when the accident happened.
With her in the car were Luan (16), her only child, Lunelle’s fiancé, Danie Breytenbach (33), and his two children, Duncan (8) and Melisha (4).
A tyre on another car burst near Villiers in the Free State and the vehicle smashed into their bakkie, causing it to roll several times before coming to a halt.
The five men in the other car weren’t hurt but Lunelle was badly injured. Her jeans hide scars on her legs and her broken shoulder still hasn’t healed. But as devastated as she is, she’s determined to focus on the future. “I must have survived for a reason,” she says.
LUNELLE has been staying with her sister, Riana Hendriksz, in Heidelberg since the accident. She smiles and tells us “there are many signs that everything’s going to be okay”. But the memory of that terrible day is never far away and she admits it cripples her at times.
“I can remember almost every detail of that day. The diesel and tyre smell, my blood. I never want to smell anything like that again.”
The weeks leading up to the tragedy were wonderful, she recalls.
“We’d spent almost three weeks in Ballito house-sitting for Danie’s brother. The boys played video games and Melisha and I collected shells and did our makeup. Melisha had been given a little make-
up table for Christmas. She laughed a lot and was so happy. The days on the beach were perfect and Danie and I just became closer.”
The family planned to leave on 5 January but everyone was ready to go home so they set off two days earlier, driving along the coast first. “Everyone was happy and making jokes,” she says.
During the journey Danie pulled over so the boys could relieve themselves. When Luan got back into the seat behind her he said, “Mommy, the cows just saw me pee.” It was the last thing he ever said to her.
Melisha, who was sitting behind Danie, had fallen asleep. Duncan was sitting between Luan and his sister. Lunelle was the only one wearing a seatbelt.
“We’d just started driving again and I was looking for music on my phone. Then suddenly the car was rolling. It felt as if it went on forever. When it came to a stop I reached out my hand to Danie and found I’d twisted around [in the car] because my seatbelt had broken. He was gone.
“I looked around and there was nobody in the back.”
Lunelle was lying half in, half out the bakkie with her leg trapped under the vehicle. Her hands shake and she struggles to talk.
“I called out to Luan and I prayed and called out to Danie and the kids. I yelled, ‘Luan, answer me! Where are you?’ ”
Danie and the kids had been flung from the bakkie. Danie died on impact and Duncan soon afterwards.
Other vehicles stopped and emergency services were called. The bakkie had to be lifted off Lunelle with a jack.
“Everyone tried to keep me calm, telling me my family was okay, but I knew they were lying.”
She kept asking until a stranger finally told her Danie and Duncan had died and that Melisha and Luan were in a critical condition.
She saw Luan as he was being loaded into the ambulance next to her. “He lifted his head and I saw his leg move, so I thought he’d be fine. That’s why it’s still hard to grasp the fact my child is dead.”
Lunelle was admitted to a private hospital in Alberton, Gauteng, where she was treated for a collapsed lung, among other injuries.
Her friend Elzona Meyer, a paramedic, visited her and told her Luan had died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. Melisha, who’d been airlifted to the hospital, was declared dead on arrival.
She’s quiet for a moment. “I’m not a widow. What does one call me? A mother who’s lost her child? Her fiancé? Her stepchildren? There’s no word for me.”
The night before our interview Lunelle had taken her son’s ashes out of the cupboard she’d stored them in. It was the first time.
“I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do this because I kept thinking of him in his Batman T-shirt, the one he was wearing when he was cremated. I couldn’t quite comprehend it was my beautiful dark-haired boy in that box.
“But last night I pressed the box to my chest, holding it like I held him after he was born. I lay on the floor and cried and cried.”
SHE’D never have made it through these dark weeks without the love and support she’s received from friends and family, Lunelle says. “I made a best friend while I was in hospital – a nurse called Hettie Bester. My family and Danie’s packed up the house while I was in hospital for nearly a month.”
She was briefly discharged to attend her loved ones’ funerals and to say goodbye to their family home. “It was so emotional. I could still smell them in the house.”
She knows she’s not the only one struggling to come to terms with what happened. “Melisha and Duncan’s mommy . . . She lost both her children. Danie’s parents.
“He was such a good man. I don’t know how anyone could ever fill his shoes,” she says. “But I don’t want to grow old alone.”
Danie, a project manager, and Lunelle were planning to get married by the end of the year and had been deciding on a date and venue.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same again – something inside me is broken.”
A replica of a leather bracelet Luan bought on holiday is wrapped around Lunelle’s wrist, and she wears Danie’s ring on her finger.
A pendant in the shape of angel wings hangs from her necklace – the feathers have a special meaning for her now.
Soon after Luan’s death his dad, Deon, found feathers in his home even though all his doors and windows had been shut.
“It was a sign that they’re up there,” Lunelle believes, her eyes flicking heavenward. “I find little feathers everywhere now and I know it’s from them.”
She touches Luan’s bracelet on her arm and smiles bravely. “The Lord spared me and there’s a purpose behind that. I still have hope.” S
‘I’m not a widow. There’s no word for me’