Four people including a nurse and a pregnant woman died when the ambulance they were in drove into a stationary trailer in the middle of the road between Mthatha and Bizana, says the Eastern Cape health department.
The ambulance driver and an assistant also died when the ambulance crashed into [the] trailer on Tuesday evening,” health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said on Wednesday morning.
The ambulance had been driving two pregnant women from Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital to the Greenville Hospital in Bizana when the accident occurred.
“The trailer had no reflectors and it was left right in the middle of the road. It was impossible for the driver to see it,” said Kupelo.
The nurse and the ambulance driver died on the scene while the ambulance assistant and the patient died in hospital on Tuesday.
Another patient sustained minor bruises and was discharged on the same day.
“The MEC for health Sicelo Gqobana conveyed his condolences to the families of the deceased.”
Authorities were searching for the owner of the trailer whom they would charge with negligence and culpable homicide.
[SAPA]
