A 53-year-old KwaZulu-Natal single father who fought off three armed hijackers outside his Pinetown home—killing one gunman and taking a bullet to the knee to protect his three teenagers—has seen a BackaBuddy campaign in his honour surpass R409,000 after South Africans crowned him the country’s "John Wick".
Despite global praise and hundreds of thousands of rands in donations, Sidney Hill, a private security operative with seven years of army experience, insists he was simply doing what any parent would do.
“I don’t think I’m John Wick,” Hill said. “I think any father would have done the same thing.”
“I’m old now, but my kids still have their whole lives ahead of them. I will stand in front of a bullet for my children,” he added.
Ambush on a bread-and-milk run
The shootout unfolded on 9 October when Hill and his three children—two sons and a daughter aged 16, 17, and 18—climbed into his bakkie (pickup truck) for a quick trip to a nearby shop for bread and milk.
“We jumped into the car, and I was playing with my boys. You can see me shaking my head [in the dashcam footage],” Hill recounted.
As Hill reversed out of the driveway and waited for one of his sons to close the gate behind the bakkie, a suspicious vehicle caught his attention.
“I was waiting for him, and then I noticed a vehicle on my left-hand side coming towards us, and then it stopped. Then it came slowly towards us again. When it passed me, I noticed the driver and the person in the back right seat looking at me,” he said.
Drawing on his military and private security background, Hill immediately sensed danger.
“I knew something was not right. Then the car stopped, and they jumped out. The guy from the back right seat ran straight past me and to my son and held my son up. A second suspect came around the car towards me, shooting.”
13 rounds fired in seconds
Placing himself between his children and the incoming gunfire, Hill drew his own firearm and shot one of the hijackers dead.
“I neutralised him,” Hill said.
Moments later, a third gunman opened fire on Hill from behind.
“He came around the corner and started shooting at me. A total of 13 rounds were fired by him,” Hill said.
Hill was shot in his right knee and struck in the arm by shrapnel, but continued to return fire as the gunman retreated.
“He [the shooter] turned, ran and tried to get in the vehicle, and I fired at it,” he said.
While the gunfight was still raging, Hill’s bakkie rolled forward into a tree, and his son rushed to rescue his sister from the vehicle.
“The van had rolled forward and hit a tree, and my son came and pulled my daughter out of the vehicle while I was still shooting at the suspects,” Hill recalled.
“I calmed down, made sure my kids were OK, and then I went up and saw the suspect lying in the road. My first priority was my kids, and I could only think about my kids and not about me at that point in time.”
All three of his children escaped physically unharmed. While the surviving gunmen fled the scene, KwaZulu-Natal police confirmed that one suspect, 35-year-old Sinenhlanhla Myeza, was subsequently arrested and appeared in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on charges of attempted murder and attempted carjacking.
Over R409,000 raised for “Johan Wick”
Roughly two weeks after the ambush, dashcam footage of the shootout surfaced online and quickly went viral around the world.
South Africans dubbed Hill “hero tata [dad]”, “Oom Kobus” (Uncle Kobus), “Johan Wick”, and “James Bond 007”, while donors from across the globe poured money into a BackaBuddy campaign and offered to buy him a bottle of his favourite whisky or brandy. By Wednesday afternoon, the crowdfunding total had passed R409,000 and continued to climb.
“I’ve got so many names. I have been called John Wick 2.0, Oubaas [old boss]… I don’t think I’m John Wick. I think any father would have done the same thing in my position,” Hill said.
He admitted he was stunned by the outpouring of financial support from strangers.
“It’s crazy. I didn’t think South Africa or the world would come together like this for a person like me. I’m just a normal, ordinary street person. I’m a dad, working day to day, looking after my children. I really didn’t expect that at all,” he said.
Lingering trauma behind closed doors
Hill said the funds raised will be used to cover potential legal fees and much-needed trauma counselling for his family, noting that his children have been left deeply shaken by the ordeal.
“We were all playing [that evening], and in a split second, everything changed. My kids feel very scared,” he said.
“My daughter, any noise, any loud bang or anything … she is battling with it. My two sons are also battling. One won’t go open the gate, and they try to stay indoors and don’t want to leave the house. Any car that drives past, they are worried that it might happen again.”