Homemade alcohol kills Brakpan man and lands his dad in ICU

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A Brakpan man is dead and his father is in the intensive care unit of the Far East Rand Hospital and the homemade alcohol they consumed is believed to be the cause.

The family of the two men told police said the concoction they drank was either brandy or vodka and that they got it over the weekend in Boksburg. Since the start of lockdown on 27 March, the sale of alcohol has been banned and many people have been making home-brewed alcoholic beverages using pineapple and other fruit mixed with yeast and sorghum, among other items.

 

Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that liquor sales would not be allowed during the lockdown, Google SA reported that ways of how to make your own alcohol were one of the top searches in South Africa. According to the spokesperson of the National Police Brigadier Vish Naidu, it was not yet know how the men got their hands on the deadly concoction.

 

He also said they were the only ones in their family to drink it. "Their family said after they drank it, they suddenly fell it. They were rushed to the hospital but the son took a turn for the worst and died on Tuesday. "The father is still in a critical condition in hospital," he said. Naidu said they were still investigating where the men got their concoction from and that they have taken it for analysis at a forensic lab.

 

However, he said, the won't make the results public as they will have critical evidential value. "If we speak to publicly on the results, that might impact negatively on the case. We are also waiting for the post mortem results of the son," he said. Last week a Northern Cape couple, Winnie, 50, and Malvin Afrikaner, 54, died after allegedly drinking a toxic concoction of home-made ginger beer.

 

A relative, who asked not to be identified, said the couple drank home-brewed ginger beer which had a high alcohol content and may have caused their deaths. “They drank home-made ginger beer which apparently had pure alcohol in it," the relative said.

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