A matriculant who earned eight distinctions last year may have lost the use of her legs after an armed robber ”emptied his gun on her”, Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Razelle Botha (18), one of the top pupils at Waterkloof High School last year, was at her home in Moreletta Park at 9.45pm on Monday night when the robber shot her in the arm, chest, stomach, lung and spine.
Professor Willem Botha, a retired professor of geophysics at the University of Pretoria, was at home with his daughter when two robbers burst in. He was wounded in the groin.
The robbers fled with a laptop and a camera.
”I can’t imagine how anyone can empty their gun on a child,” said a heartbroken Kobie Botha, Razelle’s mother, at hospital on Tuesday.
An orthopaedic surgeon at Pretoria East Hospital, Dr Etienne Coetzee, said on Tuesday afternoon that Razelle had been hit in one of her lower vertebrae.
He operated on her on Tuesday morning to stop the bleeding and remove bone fragments.
”It doesn’t look as if she has retained any functions in her legs. She’s still in a serious condition in the ICU and has a drainage pipe in her chest,” said Coetzee. – Sapa