Knife stuck in Walvis man for months

Denver Isaak (26) from Walvis Bay says he is lucky to be alive after a knife attack allegedly left him with a blade stuck in his back for months.

“I could not stand, walk or do anything. I was in so much pain I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he says.

Isaak was attacked at Walvis Bay’s Kuisebmond at the end of November 2023.

“I was walking home from work that afternoon at around 19h00, when suddenly three guys jumped on me, grabbed me and took my phone and all the money I had on me. I proceeded to enter the yard, but before I could realise it, I had a sharp object shoved in my back and fell,” he says.

Isaak says he was rushed to Welwitschia Hospital, where nurses allegedly cleaned and stitched up his wound and sent him home on the same day with prescribed painkillers, namely paracetamol.

“Just a few days after I was stitched up, I developed intense pain and could not stand, walk or do anything. Even lying down was painful,” he says, adding he had to visit the hospital several times over a four-month period.

Isaak says when his neighbour saw him in pain last week, he suggested they go to the hospital.

“When we arrived at the hospital my neighbour demanded they do an X-ray, and that was when it was discovered I had a piece of the knife stuck in my back, which was the reason for the pain.

“Imagine all those times I have been to the hospital and clinic and it never crossed anyone’s mind to have an X-ray done,” he says.

Isaak was eventually referred to a Windhoek state hospital, where he underwent an operation to remove the blade last week.

“They finally removed the blade on Wednesday, and I am feeling so much relief. The pain has gone. I really felt bad about how I was treated in the beginning. I felt the nursing staff treated me without care,” he says.

Contacted for comment this week, Welwitschia Hospital’s matron, who declined to disclose her name, referred The Namibian to the Ministry of Health and Social Services

Executive director of health and social services Ben Nangombe says he cannot confirm if Isaak was given the appropriate care by the hospitals he was attended at.

“The expectation is that if a person has that kind of injuries, appropriate investigations should have been done,” he says.