A local businessman was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by a soldier on the road between the military base and the Grahamstown Golf Club on Thursday last week.
A local businessman was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by a soldier on the road between the military base and the Grahamstown Golf Club on Thursday last week.
David Hanton, who co-owned IT Solutions, died on the scene after Zingisile Nikelo, a soldier stationed at Grahamstown’s military base, hit him as he overtook a car on the narrow road.
Nikelo’s vehicle hit Hanton, a father of two, from behind, throwing him into the air. He died at the scene soon afterwards.
Hanton was running with his friend, state prosecutor Johan Conradie, who was running in front of Hanton when the incident occured.
“It was too sudden, he was a little bit behind me, I didn’t see the impact.” He said the driver just sat for a while in his car and “got out slowly and stood there in a daze”.
By the time Nikelo tried to run away from the scene, Conradie had already identified him. He says they were training for the Ironman in Port Elizabeth next month.
“We started training together in 2007,” he said. Conradie added that he had entered the Comrades Marathon together with Hanton who would have ran his first Comrades this year.
Fellow runner, Mike Loewe said: “David was our friend. In recent years he’d picked himself up from a sodden patch in his life and had become a super-fit, top local athlete.
Despite being totally driven, he was also an extremely compassionate and kind person to his friends.” He said that among Hanton’s many sayings was that “not a day has passed when I have not enjoyed training”.
Loewe says his passing leaves a gap in the lives of his friends and the many people he came to know in the city and area.
“He was an extraordinary person, who lived an epic life. We will all have many stories to tell and right now his death seems to be the result of a totally pointless act. My thoughts are with his wife Sarah and the children.”
Nikelo appeared at the Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court facing charges of culpable homicide last Friday and was granted R500 bail. The case was remanded until 2 June.
