/ 17 April 2008

Blind man falls down shaft before operation

A 68-year-old blind man was killed when he fell six floors down an elevator shaft in Bloemfontein a day before an operation to repair his sight, the Volksblad newspaper reported on Thursday.

Giel van Heerden was apparently on his way to drop his keys at the caretaker before going to the airport to fly to Cape Town for the operation on Thursday.

It seems that Van Heerden fell down the shaft when the elevator doors on the fifth floor opened and he stepped forward. The elevator was still in the basement at the time.

”He was in a hurry yesterday [Wednesday] to get to the airport and he went alone to drop his keys ,” the report quoted his niece Sue Rautenbach as saying.

The elevator doors apparently opened for an unexplained reason.

Friends of Van Heerden, who lost his eyesight in 2002 in an accident, only found his body hours later in the basement.

Officials of the Department of Labour visited the scene on Wednesday. — Sapa