A Durban family and community members are reeling in shock and grief following the shooting of a 7-year-old boy by an unknown suspect outside his grandmother’s house in Newlands West on Friday afternoon.
Kirsyde Louw was playing with four friends on Friday at about 3pm when his grandmother, Leeanne Louw, heard a bang coming from outside the house.
Kirsyde’s grandmother rushed outside to check on the children to see if they were okay.
“Kirsyde and his friends went to play outside right after 3pm and I shouted at them to stop making a noise.
“I came back inside and sat in the dining room. I always sit there so I can keep an eye on them because of the crimes that have been going on in society lately.
“I just heard a bang – it did not sound like a gunshot, it was more like somebody had dropped something.
“In my mind, I thought he fell and when I looked outside he was lying on the ground and I started screaming his name,” said Louw.
She said when she rushed to pick him up he did not respond and she saw blood oozing out from the back of his head.
“I screamed for his great-grandmother to come with ice so that I could put it on his head.
“While I was doing that I was talking to him but he was not responding,” said Louw.
She said she then called for their neighbour, who is a nurse, to take them to the hospital in Durban and it took them less than 15 minutes to get there.
“Just before I screamed to the neighbour I could hear children whispering that he was shot, but in my mind I was like it cannot be because there were only children playing in the yard.
“In the car, I was blowing in his face because as much as his heart was still beating, he was not breathing properly and there were pauses between his breaths.
“My neighbour was doing manual stimulations on him just to try to help him breathe. We got to the hospital and they put him on life support and I said it is a possible gunshot wound. I had doubts because the wound was very tiny so I thought how can a small hole cause so much blood?” said Louw.
She said the hole in Kirsdye’s head was the size of a small lump.
“After doctors put him on life support they did a CT scan and it confirmed that he was shot in the back of his head. It went through his brain stem which controlled everything and the bullet was locked in his skull,” said Louw.
She said the neurosurgeon told them that Kirsyde was brain dead and the only thing keeping him alive was the life support machine. They had no idea how long it was going to take for his condition to improve.
She said she called Kirsyde’s mom who was at work at the time.
“The psychologist came to prepare us. They said there is nothing that they could do but the following day they were going to get a second opinion before switching off the machine because that is what the hospital does,” said Louw.
She said Kirsyde died at 3.30am.
She said the only information they have about the incident at the moment is that there was a car that drove around and a driver wound down a window and pointed something which looked like a gun at Kirsyde who was sitting on a neighbour’s fence.
KwaZulu-Natal SAPS spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda said Newlands police were investigating a case of murder of a 7-year-old which reportedly occurred on April 21 at Milarina Drive.
“It is alleged that the victim was shot by an unknown man while in the company of friends.
“He was fatally wounded and was rushed to hospital for medical attention where he succumbed to his injuries,” said Netshiunda.
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