A police officer who was shot and wounded by two men in an attack in Lydenburg had one of his attackers arrested when the man was brought to the same hospital, Mpumalanga police said on Monday.
Constable Dumisani Mhlanga was walking to his home at midnight on Saturday when he was wounded in his stomach and arm by four armed men, said Captain Leonard Hlathi.
Mhlanga returned fire and wounded two of the attackers, one in his stomach and the other in his leg.
All four men fled the scene, while Mhlanga called for help.
A passing motorist, unaware that a crime had been committed, saw a man who was wounded in his stomach at the roadside and decided to help him by driving him to the nearest hospital.
The driver did not know that the man’s victim had been admitted to the same hospital.
Hospital staff tended to the man and placed him in the same ward as the police officer.
The officer recognised the man’s face immediately and called for police to arrest the man.
”While the arrest was being effected, the suspect’s phone rang and it was the other wounded suspect asking where he [the first suspect] was and why there were so many police cars around the hospital. So the fist suspect told his friend [the second suspect] that the police were not there for him and that he should come in and get treatment.
”When he came in, the first suspect identified him and police also arrested him.”
The driver who brought the first attacker to hospital later notified police that cleaners at a car-wash service found a bloodied gun under his car seat, Hlathi said.
The man, who was wounded in his stomach, confessed that he dropped the gun under the seat when the driver was not looking.
The remaining two attackers are still at large.
A case of attempted murder was being investigated. — Sapa