Tongaat was the scene of a gory double drive-by shooting that claimed the lives of five victims, on Thursday.
Tongaat double drive-by shooting: Paramedics recall horror crime scenes
As reported by Arrive Alive, emergency medics from IPSS Medical Rescue were overwhelmed by two separate crime scenes four kilometres apart.
Both incidents took place within close proximity, on the busy R102 stretch that runs along Durban’s south coast.
According to IPSS Medical Rescue spokesperson Marthinus Stander, who spoke to Desan Thathiah during a live eNCA broadcast, teams of emergency rescuers were alerted of a shooting incident just after lunch, where two victims were discovered dead on the scene, with one other occupant clinging to life.
While officials were clearing the first scene, reports came in of another mass shooting a few kilometres down the R102 road.
IPSS Medical Rescue dispatched another team of medics to the second crime scene, where a further three victims were found dead inside a white bakkie. Miraculously, two other occupants of the bullet-riddled bakkie were still alive in the backseat.
According to reports, both patients were stabilised at the crime scene and rushed to a nearby hospital for life-saving treatment.
While police had not released a statement with more details on the crime scenes, Stander claimed that based on early observations, both incidents may have been drive-by shootings.
“It appears to be – the first one a drive-by shooting, and the second one what looks like could have been an ambush. So, in other words, they were waiting for the vehicle, and the vehicle was still moving when the shots were fired,” Stander said.
At the time this article was published, police had cordoned off both crime scenes on the R102, collecting crucial evidence to register in the quintuple homicide case docket.
Coincidentally, Thursday’s double drive-by shooting in Tongaat occurred two days after Chatsworth kingpin Brandon ‘Puff’ Kalicharan, his wife Jeconiah Pillay, and their nine-year-old daughter were viciously gunned down in a similar fashion in Springfield Park, which is about 12.3km away from the R102.
It remains unclear if the crimes mentioned above are related.
This is a developing story.