The Brave Woman - a true story
There is a popular saying in Hindi “ jaake raakhe saaeenyan maar sake n koi “ ( जाको राखे साईंयां मार सके न कोई ) meaning there by One Whom God Protects Can’t Be Killed .
Here is a surprisingly true story -
It was a normal night on the 18th December 1994 when Alison Botha came out of her house in Port Elizabeth , South Africa . She was a simple, beautiful 27 years old woman . Soon a car came and the two men forced her into their car and drove away . They drove the car to a lonely area . Both of them raped the helpless Alison Botha.
But the irony was that they were not satisfied to rape her . They wanted to kill her but in a most brutal way . They kept on stabbing her abdomen with a knife more than 30 times . Such things might have happened in real life to thousands of women but rarely in such a cruel and brutal way . It was a very painful event as she saw her internal organs falling out of her abdomen .
The two guys thought she had died and they were about to leave when they noticed her leg was twitching gently . They were amazed but they had decided to kill her anyway , so they slit her throat more than 16 times . Alison was almost dead and still . Now they were sure that Alison was dead . They left her on the spot and drove away .
The two guys never thought that such a miracle was awaiting for Alison . She was still alive and wanted to live . She started crawling towards a nearby road . But it was next to impossible for her as her head was falling backwards and other organs hanging out of her abdomen . But she managed to hold her head with one hand and hanging organs with another hand and crawled slowly to a nearby road . She was in unbearable pain and collapsed on the white stripes of the road .
After nearly two hours Dr Tiaan Eilerd was passing through that spot and he noticed Alison . It was not easy for him to carry Alison and transport her , so he waited for an ambulance . Within two hours Alison was in hospital . Everyone thought the rapist’s knife narrowly missed vital arteries which kept Alison breathing .
Even after more than a year of attack Alison was in hospital and in mid of a series of surgeries / operations to repair her damaged abdomen when Uga Carlini met her . She later on directed a film ‘ Alison ‘ based on this true story which featured Alison also . Due to the horrible injuries she suffered , possibly no one thought that Alison would be able to survive but she did survive against all odds and she is alive to date . Her film is more of a documentary which tells about her experience and how she used her attitude , belief and choice to turn her near death to life .
Alison acted in two more films -’ The Brave Miss World ‘ and ‘ The Butterfly Revolution ‘ . She wanted to write her story and a book ‘ I Have Life ‘ was thereby written about her by Mariama Thamm .
Alison got married to Tienie Botha during the process of her healing and she had two sons thereafter . Alison’s savior Dr Tiaan Eilerd was then a veterinary doctor at that time . But after that brutal incident he decided to become a doctor and he became a doctor and delivered Alison’s second son . It was another miracle that she was able to bear children .
Even after more than two decades of the unfortunate brutal happening Alison still has several scars visible on her neck and might possibly be on her invisible abdomen too . She wanted to tell her children what happened to her as she didn’t want them to know about her story from books in stores or from watching her in movies or from other people .
Her movies and books caught the hearts of millions of people around the world . Her movie won 6 nominations . She won the Rotarian award “ Courage Beyond the Norm “ and Femina’s “ Woman of Courage “ and Port of Elizabeth’s Citizen of the year .
The two rapists were subsequently identified as Frans du Toit and Theuns Kruger . The High Court of Port Elizabeth , South Africa convicted both rapists and both were sentenced to life in August 1995 . The judge Chris Jansen sentenced both to life in jail without any parole . He thought they were threats to our society and should never be released on parole. But the law changed in 2004 which permitted parole to prisoners prior to October 2004 .
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