ROXANNE JOUBERT Roxanne is now 17 years old. She did motocross and show jumping which was her passion. As a Christmas present in 2007, I gave her an air ticket to go visit her boyfriend at the time who lived in Durban. In January 2008 she and a friend flew together to Durban to watch an international motocross event, which her boyfriend at the time was taking part in. Sunday January 13th 2008 the event had taken place and it was now time for everyone to go home, including Roxanne and her friend who were booked on the 9pm flight to come home. At around 5pm she and her boyfriend went to go fetch the RHINO which was parked somewhere on the grounds and was driving it back thru the pit area when he took a turn to the left and all my daughter can remember is that the vehicle started to tip towards her side and when she looked again she was lying on the ground. When she tried to get up her ankle flopped to the side. She says she remembers saying to herself “there goes my motocross race next week” and thought to herself ok I have broken my ankle. An ambulance was called to the scene. By that time people could see that the injury was not quite what she thought it was. I was phoned and told she had broken her leg. I told her friend to let the doctor put a cast on and get her on the plane home and we will get her to a doctor on this side in the morning. The scared voice on the other side of the phone said “Ok”. Eventually I was told that the broken leg was quite bad. In short her leg had been crushed half way between the ankle and the knee by the rhino during the rollover. At this point we were still unaware of how serious the injuries were until Monday morning when the doctor called me at work to say that it is a possibility that my daughter might lose her leg. At this point I was thinking how we got from a broken leg to losing the leg overnight. The surgeon suggested that we needed to fly her home as soon as possible because she needs to be near her family. He took care of all the arrangements and on Wednesday morning she was flown via a medical plane to Cape Town and taken to the hospital so that the doctors could assess the damage to her leg. I would like to say that I am a very strong person and up until her arrival at the hospital I had been very strong and not to concerned, but when I saw what she looked like when they wheeled her into the ward, I was not prepared. What I saw was my daughter that was a fun loving full of life girl laying there as white as a sheet and not moving a finger because of the pain she was in. Long story short it was discovered that 6cm of her fibula and tibia bones were missing. All her arteries and nerves had been severed and now the doctors were running out of time to try and save the leg. Many operations, skin and bone graphs later thankfully my daughter still has her leg. In January 2010 it will be 2 years since her accident. Today, November 11, 2020 all she wants is to see the doctor and for him to tell her she might have an early Christmas present and be able to start walking again soon. Accidents happen all the time with people getting hurt and killed on a daily basis and never once did it enter my mind to try and blame anyone for the accident. Blaming the driver or anyone else would in no way have changed the situation, but in February 2008 when I started to do some research on my daughters injuries I discovered all the websites covering the Yamaha Rhino rollover issues and then soon discovered my daughters injuries were the same as others who had either been injured or killed in the rollover process. We are one of the lucky families as we still have our daughter. I contacted Yamaha SA to notify them of my daughter’s accident and to advise them how dangerous this vehicle was. I was met with a very unconcerned cold attitude and almost immediately the blame was shifted to the occupants of the vehicle.
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