A father from Johannesburg was so grief-stricken by the news of his 22-year-old son’s suicide that he committed suicide on Tuesday – by walking into the sea north of Durban.
The man (40) and his wife, formerly both from Tongaat, were in KwaZulu-Natal for a family funeral when on Tuesday night he was told his son, who’d stayed behind in Johannesburg, had committed suicide.
Shortly after receiving the news the man went missing.
Nazir Sadack, chairman of the local community policing forum and head of the volunteer emergency response unit Community Emergency Rescue Team (Cert), told YOU on Thursday that the father was reported missing at the Tongaat police station on Tuesday evening. A search was launched immediately.
“My team immediately went all out through the course of the night searching for the father,” Sadack says.
The search team found the man’s abandoned car at Casuarina Beach in Seatides, north of Durban, but there was no sign of him.
“We resumed the search in the morning when we received information someone walking their dogs on the beach had spotted a body floating in the water.”
Sadack says by the time they arrived at Casuarina Beach the body had disappeared again. They found it about 100m away from the original spot. Lifeguards brought the body onto the beach, where the man was declared dead.
Sadack says the logical conclusion is that the dad was so distraught at the news of his son’s death that he himself committed suicide.
Sadack was unable to supply more information and referred YOU to the Tongaat police station to confirm the man’s identity but police haven’t responded to queries.
