We'd Never Seen Anything Like It

She was attacked by a cow and a few days later the beloved teacher succumbed to her injuries, leaving her community in shock

- Lesego Mkhize

HE COULD hardly believe the news when his phone rang: his colleague was lying injured on the road – she’d been mauled by a cow, came the words from the other end of the line.

Mzuvukile Mjanyelwa was visiting friends just a few streets from where the incident occurred when he got the alarming phone call. The 53-year-old principal of Ncothi Senior Primary School ran to the scene as fast as his legs could carry him.

And what he found was a scene that still haunts him.

Zininzi Mathethandaba, a teacher at Ncothi Senior Primary School in Qumbu north of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, was lying helplessly on the ground, her blue dress stained red.

Chunks of flesh had been torn from her left leg, blood pooling into the red earth around her.

“She was bleeding severely,” Mzuvukile says. “So much damage had been done – her left leg was severely injured and her bone was exposed. There was a lot of blood.”

Zininzi was attacked by a cow, according to witnesses in the village. A young man had come to her aid after hearing her terrified cries for help. He beat the cow with a stick, scaring the animal and her young calf away.

But by then the cow had already ripped into Zininzi (53). Parts of her lower leg, calf and thigh were scattered on the ground after the cow had apparently spat them out.

It was a chaotic scene, Mzuvukile tells YOU. “We’d never seen anything quite like it – a cow had charged a woman. The whole community has been shaken up by what happened.”

Frantic neighbours tried to find transport to take the badly injured woman to hospital while also being on the lookout for what they deemed to be a dangerous animal.