WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-12-04 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Kamini Padayachee
The hero of last month’s Pavilion shopping centre robbery, Inspector Andre Mostert, has at last spoken of the incident, telling of how, faced with a gang of robbers and fearing for his wife, his instincts kicked in.
Mostert single-handedly took on the men in a fierce gun battle and injured two robbers despite being severely wounded himself.
Mostert, 34, who has been a police officer for 16 years and is a detective at the Berea police station, was shot when he came across four men fleeing after robbing the Arthur Kaplan jewellery store.
| ‘It was touch and go for a while because I was battling to breathe’ |
Speaking at his home, Mostert recounted the incident: “I can remember bits and pieces. I was going to meet my wife, Hanelene. We were walking in the centre when we heard glass shatter and we turned and saw four men. They started shooting.
“It all happened so quickly. When I was shot in the stomach, it felt like I had been hit with something blunt, but I don’t remember being shot the other times. It felt like it happened for five or 10 minutes, when it was actually seconds. But I know I emptied the 16 rounds in my gun.”
He was shot in the chest, stomach and arm, but made a remarkable recovery and was released after two weeks from St Augustine’s hospital.
“It was touch and go for a while because I was battling to breathe, but the doctors and nurses were excellent. I feel much stronger now, though I still have my bad moments,” he said.
His wife said support from friends, family and strangers had boosted her husband’s recovery.
| ‘I battle to sleep and sometimes when I talk about what happened, I get tears in my eyes’ |
“People from Canada, Australia and other places phoned to offer prayers. There was a pastor praying from the time Andre was shot. We received flowers, bulging bags of get-well cards from pupils from our daughter Shantel’s school, Livingstone Primary, and from another school in Berea,” she said.
Though his wounds are healing well, the experience has affected Mostert psychologically.
“I battle to sleep and sometimes when I talk about what happened, I get tears in my eyes. But at least I have stopped smoking since it happened.”
He said he wanted to return to the Pavilion to thank Beverley Jewellers staff who helped him before paramedics arrived.
He said he was too focused on recovering to worry about the men who shot him. “I am too glad to be alive and home with my family to worry about them. Nothing vital was hit and that’s what saved me.”
Mostert would spend his first Christmas at home in two years, and while other children were planning activities for their school holidays, Shantel, 8, said she would spend hers looking after her father.