Jonathan Rischbeter, a Ryan Ferguson Cabinets employee, said he was still waiting for the police to arrive after a terrifying hijacking ordeal on Friday 11 April.
Jonathan Rischbeter, a Ryan Ferguson Cabinets employee, said he was still waiting for the police to arrive after a terrifying hijacking ordeal on Friday 11 April.
Rischbeter was hijacked in his work vehicle while waiting for the robots to turn green at the corner of Somerset and Beaufort Street last Friday at 3pm.
“It was pay day and I was on my way home. I was waiting at the robots with my windows down and two men ran at me with knives.”
Rischbeter said he did exactly what the hijackers asked him to do.
“The one guy got into the bakkie and continued to keep a knife at my throat. The other sat in the back of the bakkie and demanded I drive with them in the car,” said Rischbeter.
He said that the men appeared to be from out of town as they were uncertain where to go.
At this point they had not demanded anything from Rischbeter except to drive them to Douglas Reservoir, opposite the Makana Resort.
While he drove the vehicle and the one man held a knife at his throat, he strategically slipped his wallet out of his jeans pocket and down the side of the car seat without the hijackers noticing.
Rischbeter drove into a ditch, where the men asked him to stop and get out of the vehicle.
“As soon as I stopped, my phone began to ring. It was my wife calling," he said. "The one man made me give him the phone and they then proceeded to search my pockets for a wallet.”
Fortunately they never found his wallet and they ran off with his cell phone, leaving him wedged in a ditch.
The men ran to meet a Bantam bakkie which stopped for them along Grey Street.
“I tried to look for the number plate of the bakkie but the tow bar obscured it,” said Rischbeter.
After many attempts to get his bakkie out the ditch, he decided to lock his car and go across the road to the Makana Resort, from where he was able to call the police.
“I called the police and they told me to wait by the bakkie until they arrived.
"And I am still waiting for them to arrive,” he said.
When Rischbeter walked back to his car, two traffic officers, Terrence Bafo and Clint Cassels, had arrived at the scene wondering why the bakkie was left stranded in the ditch.
These officers called Rischbeter’s boss, Ryan Ferguson, who arrived on the scene shortly afterwards.
Ferguson said that he is thankful to these traffic officers, who assisted Rischbeter by calling a tow truck to the scene.
“When I went back to the bus I just sat on the grass shaking. I could hardly talk,” said Rischbeter. "I am so thankful that they didn’t stab me."
“I want to warn the public to keep their eyes open and car doors locked. This doesn’t often happen in Grahamstown, [but] people shouldn’t just sit in their cars and think that everything is fine,” said Rischbeter.
Police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said on Wednesday 16 April that the Grahamstown Police had received no report of a hijacking during the past week.
