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Gillitts fireman Vincent Mxele is airlifted to St Augustines Hospital in a 15th Squadron Oryx yesterday after plummeting 40m from a cliff in Winston Park. The fireman was battling a veld fire when he fell. With him are Netcare911 paramedic Avi Lange and ER24 paramedic Paul Knoesen. In the background are flight engineers Sergeant-Major Wade Sloane and Sergeant Lazola Vumazonke.
After plunging at least 40m from a cliff into the middle of a raging veld fire, Gillitts fireman Vincent Mxele survived to be declared in a stable condition at St Augustine’s Hospital after being airlifted by the South African Air Force yesterday.
After the 5am rescue in Winston Park – manned by Netcare911, ER24, volunteer workers and the police – Mxele’s colleagues were stunned that he had made it out of the “war zone” with just a broken leg and a gash to the head.
“It was like a war zone. We were trying to fight the fire and protect the area he was in. It was absolutely pitch black,” said the eThekwini fire department’s Justin Bateman.
“He was able to crawl away from the fire. It is a miracle that neither the fall nor the fire killed him,” he said.
With the sound of the 15th Squadron Oryx helicopter’s drone in the background, the fire department’s regional commander, Melvin Ramlall, explained that 46-year-old Mxele and his team had been called out to the blaze in Fraser Lane, along a gorge, when he slipped.
Ramlall said that rescuers abseiled down the cliff to reach and “package” him, to be hoisted by the Oryx crew.
By late afternoon, Ramlall said that Mxele was doing well and was expected to go into theatre for an operation on his broken femur.
“He is just thanking God that he is alive… he went out on a routine assignment. A non-threatening fire can turn serious. Anything can go wrong,” said Ramlall.
He said he believed this was the first serious injury that Mxele had suffered during his decade as a firefighter, and that Mxele’s only worry now |was breaking the news to his mother, who was ill.
Other than that, he was in “good spirits”, Bateman confirmed.
