by Isi Esene

Days after she came out of the rubbles of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), South African Lindiwe Ndwandwe finally recounted her five-day ordeal, revealing that she survived on her urine.

In a 20-minute video made available to THISDAY yesterday by Adaure Achumba, the West African correspondent of eNews Channel Africa (eNCA), Ndwandwe attributed her rescue to her faith in God.

According to her, she survived by drinking her urine after she got dehydrated.

She said: “I was trapped in the toilet for five days. I was hungry and thirsty throughout my stay there. I couldn’t even move so I was just lying down because there was no leg or headroom to move around.”

Rescue operations had been ongoing for four days when she walked out unaided on the fifth day at about 2 am last week Tuesday after excavation had been done in the section where she was trapped.

She said: “I was about to eat when I decided to visit the restroom. When I was there, I heard this noise and then the ceiling of the toilet came crumbling down.

“I heard people praying but I was alone in that place. I tried to sleep but it was difficult. It was through a hole that I knew whether it was day or night.

“On the third day, I knew they were rescuing people because I stopped hearing the voices of my neighbours.”

On how she survived, she said: “Remember I was about to eat when I decided to visit the rest room. When I was hungry, it was then I started having a conversation with God. Anytime I was hungry or thirsty and I told God, I will just fall asleep. On the fourth day, I was becoming weaker.

“And I was more thirsty. It then occurred to me that the only thing to do was to drink my urine. But I couldn’t even do that because I was lying on my side and the ceiling was hanging over me.
“So I removed my vest from my neck, put it round my legs and urinated on it. The same urine-soaked vest was what I sucked on anytime I got thirsty.”

On how she was rescued, she said she heard two men arguing on whether to dig where she was or not and when they did, she came out alive with a few bruises on her arms.
She said: “When I was rescued and I called my husband, the only thing he could say was thank God. I could hear the loud shouts of my family rejoicing in the background.”
After the interview, she was again led to the site of the collapsed building, where she broke down upon sighting the wreckage from where she crawled out, muttering that it was God that saved her.

Isime Esene