SAfm, Wednesday evening

Lishilo SJ at SABC.co.sele, SABC Libraries and Archives, Preserving the Past, Supporting the Present, Inspiring the Future. You're listening to the National Pulse. Eight minutes past five. Let's go to Talisha Naidoo, SABC News reporter at Shell Cross. A story that the SABC has been covering: an elderly woman dying after collapsing at a voting station. Have you got details for us there, Talisha?

Yes, John, it's quite an unfortunate incident to report on on a day when there's so much of excitement because of the local government elections. But the elderly woman had reportedly died after collapsing while she was waiting to cast her vote in a line at a voting station at the Shalcross Primary School south of Durban. Now, it's believed that the woman had joined the queue earlier on today. She was quite excited about casting her vote. And then due to the humidity.

She started experiencing forms of hot flushes and difficulty in breathing. That's when she had alerted those around her. And the IEC officials, along with some of those who were in the queue, had decided to try and help her, stand her, bring her something to drink. But unfortunately, that difficulty in breathing persisted. They had called an ambulance to come through. Unfortunately, according to the officials, they had called three ambulances. Nobody had come through, so they had decided.

To take her directly to a local hospital. What we understand from the report is that she was declared dead on arrival at that local hospital. It's such a sad incident. We did speak to the IEC in KwaZulu-Natal. Mawetumosi from the IEC said that they can confirm that they are aware of this incident. It had been reported by their IEC officials. The presiding officer at this particular voting station confirmed the incident as well. And I also

Managed to speak to one of the election observers who happened to also be the neighbor of the elderly woman. And she had said that it was such a shocking incident. She had spoken to the woman in the morning. And this elderly woman, believed to be in her late 70s, was just so excited. She's always been voting for every election. She was looking forward to casting her vote. And the sad part about it is that the woman had reportedly died before she could exercise her right to vote.

I'm seeing a report on SABC News. A quote here saying, I called the daughter. Daughter came. We tried to pick her up. They couldn't. They phoned an ambulance. The ambulance didn't come, and they had to use an Uber because the family was there. Is that right? Yes, so that's what the election observer and the neighbor, Pretty Jwara, had told me. She said that they had called for three ambulance services. All three did not arrive. They were in such a panic because, at that point, they had asked one of

The police officers that deployed to that station to assist, and he had said that the pulse was getting weaker and to a point where he could not feel it anymore. And then they decided that they just could not keep waiting for an ambulance service to come through. They decided to just book a private vehicle in Uber service and get the woman straight to the hospital on their own. And I think that also John had just highlighted some of the issues that the community members thereafter were ventilating to us in that area that.