Economist Dawie Roodt and his family were ”doing fine” even though he was still in intensive care after being stabbed during a robbery at his home in a Pretoria East security estate.

”The plastic surgeon will do a second operation on Sunday. After the operation he will stay in ICU for three more days,” his personal assistant Erika Botha said in a statement on Saturday.

Roodt, his wife Marina, their twin toddlers and his adult daughter Danielle were confronted when she arrived at the gate in their home at about 20:00 on Thursday.

According to police, four armed men confronted his daughter when she arrived for a visit.
Threatening her with a panga and a revolver they gained entry to the house.

Botha said they were tied up in the study and held at gunpoint while their house was being ransacked.

Drew suspects away from family

During the robbery there was a power failure in the area and Roodt used the opportunity to try and draw them away from his family by saying he had money in his vehicle in the garage.

“At an appropriate time [in] the garage Dawie attacked the assailant which led to the assailant stabbing and cutting Dawie multiple times. The assailants panicked because of the noise and they fled the property with the stolen goods.”

This included laptops and handbags.

Roodt was taken to hospital for emergency treatment to injuries on his head and arm.

Netwerk24 reported on Saturday that the muscles in his left arm were cut and nerve damage has to be attended to in a second operation.

Roodt said the garage door could not be opened because of the power cut and so while the robber was busy with the remote, he tackled the suspect.

He said there was much pushing, pulling and screaming and in the process they got to him with a knife.

”My biceps and triceps are gone,” he quipped.

Massive blood loss

He said he could not run back into the house because that’s where the gunman was, so he jumped the fence, ran to his neighbour for help and then ran back to his own house.

”I was bleeding profusely. Man, I cannot believe that a person can bleed so much.”

He eventually collapsed going up the steps and thinks this was from the blood loss.

Trying to make sense of it, he told Beeld that the only thing that could help the country’s problems was stronger, better, economic growth.

Police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale told News24 on Saturday there was nothing to report yet regarding arrests.

Several similar incidents

The attack on the Roodt family was one of several similar incidents reported this week.

A family in Roshnee in Vereeniging said on Friday they were still traumatised and too scared to sleep in their own house after it was broken into by a group of robbers who tied their son up, with the incident ending in a shoot-out with one of the suspects killed.

“We can’t sleep in the house. [During] the day there is no problem because people are around and we talk, but at night it is very weird,” said Faizel Ally after his family’s ordeal. News24