By Dylan Bettencourt
- Sipho Jesus Mgiba lost his right foot at Denver station in 2015 after trying to board a moving train, but the court dismissed his case against Prasa.
- Judge Anthony Millar ruled Prasa not to blame after witnesses said Mgiba was running alongside the train without a ticket when he fell.
Sipho Jesus Mgiba lost his foot trying to board a train – and now he’s also lost his court case against the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa.
Not even divine intervention could save him from this fall or from a court ruling that blamed him for it.
Mgiba, from Tembisa, told the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that he was shoved out of a packed train at Denver station back in 2015. The fall cost him his right foot, which was amputated soon after.
But on Friday, Judge Anthony Millar ruled that Prasa wasn’t to blame.
Jesus said he boarded the train calmly and was forced out the door when the crowd pushed forward as it pulled off. But Prasa’s witnesses painted a very different picture – of a man running alongside the train and trying to leap inside like a movie stunt.
Train guard Mr Magoso told the court he saw Mgiba sprinting next to the moving train and trying to grab onto a metal lip above the door.
“He slipped and fell,” said Magoso, who then helped lift him back onto the platform and even picked up his severed foot, Citizen reported.
Security officer Mr Baloyi said Mgiba admitted at the scene that he had tried to board the train while it was moving – and didn’t even have a ticket.
Judge Millar wasn’t buying Jesus’s story. He said if Mgiba wasn’t in a hurry and had a ticket, why was he squeezing onto an overcrowded train and not just stepping off once it started moving?
He also asked why Jesus gave different stories to Magoso and Baloyi.
“Inexplicable,” said the judge.
In the end, Jesus’s case was dismissed, and Prasa walked away with no damages to pay.
Pictured above: Prasa.
Image source: File
