Warrant Officer Eunice Nortman, a 53-year-old Crime Intelligence officer, died after she was struck by a car at Lichtenburg Mall in North West on Monday.
Nortman, who was attached to the Ngaka Modiri Molema District, was at the mall with her wheelchair-bound 83-year-old mother and a sister who was visiting from Cape Town when she was hit.
A 23-year-old man, Akilesh Gupta, was arrested and appeared in the Lichtenburg Magistrate’s Court on charges of murder and contravening the Immigration Act.
The charges have not been tested in court. Gupta is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
For Nortman’s husband, Willem, who is also a police officer stationed in Lichtenburg, the tragedy began with a frantic phone call from his mother-in-law.
‘She couldn’t speak’
Willem said Eunice had returned home to collect her mother and sister for a quick trip to the mall.
She greeted him before leaving.
“Hi, Willem,” she said.
“I told them to enjoy it, and they left,” he said.
About half an hour later, his mother-in-law called, shouting that Eunice had been hit by a vehicle at the mall and telling him to come quickly.
When Willem arrived, emergency services and a crowd had gathered outside the mall. He found Eunice lying on a stretcher near Checkers.
Her eyes were open and she was moving her right arm, but she could not speak. Bandages covered her head.
“I just said, ‘Nice, are you OK?’” he recalled.
She never answered. Paramedics placed her in an ambulance and rushed her to hospital.
That was the last exchange Willem would have with his wife.
Serious head injury
Eunice was taken to General de la Rey Hospital, where doctors discovered that she had suffered a serious head injury.
The hospital was a level-one facility and could not provide the intensive care required, according to Willem. Doctors said she needed to be transferred to a hospital with more advanced facilities.
She was sedated and on a ventilator, making the transfer urgent. Willem said the family then spent hours trying to obtain authorisation from their medical aid for an advanced life-support ambulance.
“It was very frustrating. It felt like hours,” he said.
Willem contacted a local emergency service through connections made during his work investigating similar cases. The family was given the details of another ambulance service in Klerksdorp that might have been able to provide the necessary vehicle.
However, he said, further authorisation was still required from the medical aid.
The doctors changed shifts while the process continued. Relatives and the family’s private doctor also tried to assist.
Willem said he briefly left the hospital to arrange the removal of Eunice’s car from the mall. The vehicle’s remote had been damaged when she was struck, leaving the family unable to start it.
When he returned, hospital staff asked whether the family had arranged the ambulance.
“How can we dispatch the ambulance?” he recalled asking.
Eventually, authorisation was obtained, but the family was told that no ambulance was immediately available.
“It was hectic. It was terrible. We eventually managed to get a notice that the ambulance was available, but it was 30 minutes from the depot and the ambulance would then still take an hour and a half,” he said.
The family’s account describes their frustration and distress during the search for a suitable transfer. It does not, by itself, establish that any delay caused Eunice’s death. Any questions about the medical process would need to be assessed by the relevant authorities and healthcare providers.
Family told she was brain dead
As the evening progressed, the doctor on duty called the family in and told them that Eunice was brain dead, Willem said.
“She said that she checked the pupils and they were dilated. She said she switched off the machine for a moment and found that she stopped breathing.
“She couldn’t breathe on her own. The machines were breathing for her,” he said.
The family was then faced with the painful question of when to switch off the machines keeping her alive.
“You see this stuff in the movies and think that it will never happen to me. So, I didn’t want to take that decision,” he said.
Their pastor, who was present, advised the family not to make a sudden decision. He reminded them that they might later question whether they should have waited another day.
The family had to confront the reality of Eunice’s condition while also trying to understand how she had been struck and what would happen in the criminal case.
Remembered as compassionate and energetic
Eunice’s family remembered her as compassionate, generous and constantly active.
Willem described his wife as a “busybody” who was always finding something to do at home, at work or in the community.
Her career in Crime Intelligence formed a central part of her life, but relatives said her commitment extended beyond her work. She was also a devoted mother to their two sons.
For Willem, the sudden loss has left the family trying to process both the shock of the collision and the difficult medical decisions that followed.
He said Eunice was the love of his life and a devoted parent.
Accused faces court proceedings
Gupta, 23, was arrested following the collision and appeared in the Lichtenburg Magistrate’s Court on charges of murder and Immigration Act offences.
The murder charge means the prosecution will allege that the circumstances of the collision justify a criminal charge. The court proceedings will determine the nature of the evidence and whether the charge is ultimately proven.
The available information does not set out the exact circumstances in which the vehicle struck Nortman, including its speed, direction of travel or whether other people were injured.
Those details will need to be established through the police investigation, witness statements, vehicle examinations and any available security-camera footage from the mall.
The Immigration Act charge is separate from the allegation concerning Nortman’s death. The accused remains entitled to the presumption of innocence on all charges.
For the Nortman family, the legal process is only one part of a much larger loss. They are mourning a wife, mother, daughter, sister and colleague who left home for a short mall trip and never returned.
Eunice will be remembered by her family for her compassion, generosity and determination to remain busy helping others. Her husband is now left with the memory of their final exchange and the painful knowledge that a routine outing ended in tragedy.