Doctor In Danger

by Dr A
(South Africa)

Photo by NEC Corporation of America

I’m a medical doctor who has been practicing for about 51 years in South Africa. Most days in the clinic are quite uneventful, but every now and again, something interesting happens!

One morning in October last year (2013), I was quietly attending to my patients in our clinic. Suddenly, I heard a big commotion outside my consulting room. As I looked out my door, I saw two heavily armed policemen with bulletproof vests and automatic weapons come running down the passage only to stop at my door.

One of them asked me if someone had come into my room. As I answered, “No”, he ran around my room searching for somebody. Before I knew it, he was out and running down the passage to the doctor next door.

Apparently, what happened was that three criminals had held up the staff at the local supermarket and grabbed money from the tills. When the alarm went off, all three of the criminals ran in different directions.

One got access to our clinic through the parking garage. He must have seen the entrance door at the foot of the steps and just walked into the clinic as if he was just another patient.

In no time, police vehicle sirens were blaring in the street and a police helicopter was circling the building. At that stage, the staff told the policemen that the man had escaped through the front door.

He then jumped over the fence into the next property, which is a block of Flats and pretended to be just another one of the residents staring at the circling helicopter. A sharp-eyed policeman noticed that one of the spectators was drenched with sweat and realised that he was the criminal!

They caught him, loaded him into the police van and all of us could continue with our work again. Just another morning in South Africa!