The Mercury
This stretch of Durban beach, where a member of the metro mounted police and his horse sank in sinking sand, is marked with warning signs on the promenade and on the top of the beach, but someone approaching from the sea, would not see the signs. Picture: Zanele Zulu
Durban – The Durban metro policeman whose horse was rescued from sinking sand on the beach at the weekend said he did not see signs warning that the area was under construction and that it was dangerous.
“I can say with absolute certainty that there was no one there at the time,” Inspector Jeffrey Gunter said on Tuesday.
Warning signs had been erected and tape had been put up on three sides of the rectangular area to cordon it off, but, Gunter said, he entered from the side closest to the sea, from where none of the warning signs were visible and where there was no tape.
The inspector and his captain were carrying out mounted patrols at uShaka beach on Sunday when Gunter and his horse, Wild Boy, became stuck in the sand. The city had been carrying out sand pumping to combat erosion, and the unstable conditions caused the ground to give way beneath Wild Boy’s weight.
Gunter leopard crawled to safety, but it took nearly an hour to free Wild Boy.
The city has criticised the policeman.
“He was told not to enter that area, twice, but didn’t listen,” the senior manager of coastal engineering, Godfrey Vella, said yesterday.
But Gunter told The Mercury it had later emerged that another patrol team, which had been in the area only 30 minutes before, was the one warned.
“We weren’t warned, nor were there any signs from the side that we were coming from,” he said. His captain had filed a report to that effect before news of the incident had become public, Gunter added.
Wild Boy is well and will return to duty with Gunter on Saturday.
The incident has raised concerns about public safety at the beach. However, Vella said sand pumping at uShaka beach did not pose a threat. Horses were heavy and had thin legs so were at risk of sinking into the sand, he said.
“A person would sink only about knee-deep after taking a few steps and it would be easy to pull him out.”
Meanwhile Colin Openshaw was surfing with friends at uShaka pier on Saturday afternoon when a GoPro action camera he was wearing around his head came loose and fell into the water. Ordinarily the device would float but, because of the sand works, it disappeared and was lost.
“There was no one warning surfers or swimmers about the sand pumping,” Openshaw said.
The Mercury
