A woman jumped off a Durban beach pier with her three-year-old son strapped to her back in an apparent suicide bid on Wednesday night.
Inspector Tray Allison of the police search and rescue unit said fishermen on the Wedge Beach Pier saw the woman climb over the railings and jump into the water.
Emergency services were alerted within three minutes, but the child’s body washed up later on Durban’s North Beach.
Under lights erected on the beach by the National Sea Rescue Institute, Ethekwini mounted metro police searched the shoreline on horseback for the body of mother. They were assisted by the fire brigade. A police diver was deployed in the rough surf.
It is not known why the woman jumped.
Fisherman Neil Jacob said he watched the women as she moved towards the edge of the pier.
”I didn’t think she would jump,” he said.
When she released one hand from the railing, he screamed and ran towards her. ”I gripped her sleeve, but she was too heavy.” He said her eyes ”were big and paranoid-like”.
Fellow-fisherman Amesh Haripersad said: ”She didn’t even scream. Only the baby screamed”.
The second time the woman surfaced, the baby had already slipped off her back. – Sapa