Description

Johan Jo Erasmus: dies after shot in the head by a large gang - he was trying to defend his family: Rietvlei smallholding Stone Cradle south of Pretoria April 21 2012 Saturday.

April 23 2012 Rietvlei Afrikaner smallholder and self-employed website-designer Johan Jo Erasmus was killed while protecting his partner Saturday-morning April 21 2012 at their Rietvlei smallholding.

HOSPITAL REFUSED TO TREAT CRITICALLY SHOT MAN ARGUING OVER PAPER WORK:
And to add to the family's ordeal, hospital staffers THEN refused to treat the critically-injured man while they argued over 'paper-work'.

Erasmus, 40, was critically injured and later died after transferral to another hospital without getting emergency treatment. Mr Erasmus gave his life to try and safeguard his partner, Aneke Gardiner, and her two children, Aidan, 5, and Mike, 8 while their cottage was being attacked by a large gang which tried to break in.
He confronted at least five, probably more, robbers when they tried to break into the cottage where the couple lived on a smallholding near Stone Cradle. Erasmus was shot in the head and later died in the Kalafong Hospital.Mrs Gardiner said she woke at about 2am on Saturday when she heard people talking outside. “I woke up Jo. He ran downstairs and encountered a robber who was already inside the house. He had climbed through a window. The other four black men were trying to break open the door. I ran to the bedroom where my two children were sleeping and I took them upstairs with me to our bedroom. We sat on the bed while Jo confronted the robbers downstairs. Jo shouted at me to bring the laptop the men demanded. I was on my way down when I heard shots and saw Jo falling down. The men at this stage were still outside, but after Jo was shot they broke down the door and came into the house.”
Gardiner ran back upstairs and the attackers stormed after her.They demanded jewellery, which the working-class self-employed Afrikaans couple did not have. They then took her cellphone, a TV and the laptop, before fleeing. Nothing else of value was looted from the cottage - although they could have emptied it out.
Gardiner had bruising on the side of her face where the robbers had hit her with the butt of a firearm. Gardiner said the youngsters were extremely upset and cried bitterly after the ordeal. Without a cellphone she was unable to contact the emergency services. So the children, 'were extremely brave and had tried to help their mother to carry Erasmus to the car to take him to hospital. " The children also ran to fetch towels to try to stop the bleeding.
“We tried to drag him, but he was too heavy. He was still conscious and tried to get up to walk, but he could not. He fell down, moaned and tried to say something I could not hear.” Gardiner said she picked him up by his upper body, while each child tried to lift a foot, but they could not manage. A neighbour who had heard the gunshots, had meanwhile showed up, phoning for an ambulance which took Erasmus to hospital.

STAFF ARGUED ABOUT THE PAPER-WORK BEFORE THEY WOULD TREAT HIM:
Hospital staff argued about the paperwork for some time before admitting her partner, Gardiner said. "At one stage they even wanted to airlift him to the Johannesburg General Hospital as they said the hospital was full." Eventually the staff decided to send Erasmus to Kalafong, but he died there four hours later. Erasmus, a self-employed web designer, and his partner were expecting their first child together in September. “He was so excited about the arrival of our baby. We did not know whether it was going to be a boy or a girl, but he could not wait. We were extremely happy and planned to get married,” said Gardiner.Her two children loved Erasmus like their own father. “They called him ‘Space Dad’, because he knew so much about the stars. “We are devastated by his death and I am in total shock…”Erasmus’s brother Rassie Erasmus said as far as he knew, nobody had been arrested yet. “We are meeting the Lyttelton police tomorrow (today).”

AT LEAST NINE SPENT CARTRDIGES FOUND AT CRIME SCENE:
Mike Davis, the owner of the property the couple rented, said they had picked up at least nine cartridges. There had been many violent crimes in the area lately and these have 'picked up over the past few months, but this was the first murder in the area in years", he said.

http://www.thepost.co.za/dad-to-be-killed-by-gang-1.1281538