Off Road Rescue Unit - Emergency Call-Out Reports

	Off-Road Rescue Unit - Emergency Incidents Report - 2004
No.	Incident / Location	Date	What Happened
13/2004	Search for missing person Heidelberg Gauteng	18 Dec	ORRU received a call from the South African Police Services requesting help with a search for a missing farmer in the Heidelberg area. The farmhouse had been attacked and robbed on Thursday evening and the farmer, in his 60s, who lived alone, had not been seen since. Teams deployed and after a couple of hours of searching, the farmer's body was found. Read more on this incident here.
12/2004	Call-out after bad storm West Rand Gauteng	16 Dec	A severe Highveld thunderstorm hit the West Rand in the evening, and heavy winds uprooted trees and disrupted road traffic. A car was half-submerged in a rising river. The Off-Road Rescue Unit responded to a call-out by Johannesburg Disaster Management, and assisted in the clearing of trees and recovery of the vehicle. Read more on this incident here.
11/2004	Search for missing hiker Vergenoeg Farm Hartbeespoort, Northwest Province	11 Nov	A man had gone for what should have been a two-hour hike in the mountains on a farm on Thursday 11 November. When he was three hours overdue, and an exploratory search for him had yielded nothing, the farmer called the emergency services. MSAR and ORRU were called out on a dark and stormy night, and began searching the mountains, locating and rescuing the injured hiker in the early hours of Friday morning. Read more on this incident here.
10/2004	Search for missing person Breedt's Nek Magaliesberg North West Province	20 Aug	A man had been reported missing by his family. The South African Police Services located his abandoned car at the end of a track at the top of the Magaliesberg mountains and called out the rescue unit on Friday morning to assist. We provided radio communications and our 4x4 vehicles were used to troop ground searchers over rough terrain to remote parts of the mountains. The search continued over Saturday and Sunday, but was fruitless. Members of the Mountain Search & Rescue and K9 Search & Rescue were also involved, and resumed the search the following weekend, but in vain.
09/2004	Search for missing person West Rand, Gauteng	31 Jul	A teenager went missing in the mine dumps on the West Rand and the Rescue Unit was called out to assist the police in the search for him.
08/2004	Search for missing person Eldorado Park, Gauteng	18 Jul	The search for the kidnapped student begun on 14 July was resumed in the same area as before, but in daylight. A number of teams searched on foot and with vehicles over a wide area. Although our search was without a positive result, the police said that the thoroughness with which it was executed enabled them to regard those areas as clear and deploy their resources elsewhere. During the next week, the student's body was discovered a few kilometres from our search area. Police subsequently arrested a suspect. He was convicted in July 2005 for her kidnapping and murder. He was given a life sentence for the murder, an additional 15 years for the kidnapping and 10 years for extortion.
07/2004	Search for kidnapped woman Eldorado Park, Gauteng	14 Jul	A 21-year-old female student had been kidnapped from a university campus in Midrand. The police called out the Unit to assist in searching a large area of rough terrain south of the city at night. Members paired up and conducted 4x4 vehicle-based searches of a wide area using spotlights. The search was abandoned at around midnight. A few days later, the girl's body was found nearby. A man was convicted in July 2005 for her kidnapping and murder. He was given a life sentence for the murder, an additional 15 years for the kidnapping and 10 years for extortion.
06/2004	Fire Roodepoort, Gauteng	13 May	The Struben's Valley branch of Makro (a department store) caught fire around midday on Thursday and quickly became an inferno. Johannesburg Disaster Management called out the unit and we provided emergency lighting and also sustenance to the fire-fighters. Read more on this incident here.
05/2004	Emergency lighting Roodepoort, Gauteng	15 April	At nightfall on the day of the national elections, there was a power failure at a ballot counting station in Roodepoort. The unit was called out and provided emergency lighting in the community hall from our power generator. Read more on this incident here
04/2004	Vehicle recovery Four Ways, Gauteng		The unit was called out to assist with the recovery of two police vans which had become stuck in mud while driving cross-country in the course of their duties. Members responded but on arrival the police had managed to extricate themselves.
03/2004	Vehicle recovery Crocodile River Hennops Valley, Gauteng	13 Apr	A 4x4 driver had underestimated the depth of the Crocodile River and drowned his truck in it up to window height. Members of the unit responded and recovered his vehicle.
02/2004	Search and rescue Clarens, Free State	8 Apr	A father and two young sons had been part of a group of hikers on a day outing in the mountains. The three had turned back and got lost. Night fell and the police were called. The Unit was called out and members left Johannesburg in the very early hours for the search area, 250 km away, to begin the search at first light. Read more on this incident here.
01/2004	Search for missing person Sterkfontein, Gauteng	31 Jan	A long-term patient at a special hospital had been reported missing during the day. As night fell, the SA Police Services called out the Unit. A command post was set up in the place where the patient was last seen, but when no leads were found, the search was relocated to the Honeydew area. Read more on this incident here.

Links to other call-out reports: