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The struggle with load shedding has been real, but perhaps not as terrible as it has been for Neyamiah Eaton’s parents who are still trying to come to terms with the tragic death of their three-year-old daughter.

Neyamiah Eaton’s parents, Sunera and Curwyn Eaton, from Johannesburg, would take turns to ensure her oxygen machine was sorted despite continuous power cuts, but on May 25, an unscheduled electricity cut caused them to become daughterless.

Little Miah, as she was affectionately called, died in her mother’s arms after her oxygen machine switched off during load shedding. The young girl suffered from a rare form of neurodevelopmental disorder called Woree Syndrome. Unfortunately, the viral infection caused her to have difficulty breathing and she required constant care with an oxygen machine.

“We had a routine set every day with her. That has just abruptly come to an end,” James told News24.

“There’s an overwhelming feeling of not knowing what to do now that Neyamiah is gone forever.”

The Jozi parents are now considering legal action after Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader Mmusi Maimane opened a case with the police. They want to sue the power utility for negligence.

“She will never come back to us. But [we believe] the process leading up to her taking her last breath … could have been avoided had we not sat with this ridiculous electricity problem,” said Eaton.

City Power, which supplies the Randburg area where the family lives, said they had offered their condolences, but that is obviously not enough.

Huisgenoot reported that the family had a portable oxygen cylinder as backup, and the house had a power inverter with a strong battery to keep the device running in the case of load shedding.

At the time of her death, the suburb of Bromhof, where the family stays, was crippled under load shedding. So much so that their inverter’s batteries never fully recharged and couldn’t supply the oxygen device in her room with the needed power. And then there were the times when the power just never came back on.

Image: Facebook / Sunera James

“It was a constant nightmare having to phone family in other areas to check if they had power because my lights weren’t on yet. Most days, I would have to put my child in the car and drive to my mom to plug the concentrator in so that I didn’t have to use the oxygen cylinder because I needed it for worst-case scenarios,” Surena told News24 at the time.

To add salt to the wound, the family’s struggles with electricity also affected Neyamiah’s funeral:

“There was prolonged load shedding on the day of the funeral. [The load shedding] lasted for two days.

“Trying to say our final farewell to my child during power cuts was the most difficult and painful thing I have ever had to do as a mother,” James said.

The pain of losing a child is unbearable, and the Eatons were forced to reckon with the horrendous onslaught too soon:

“We used to take turns in seeing to her needs, that her breathing equipment was working, now everything just stopped. I don’t wish this pain on any parent,” the emotional father said.

It is surely unforgivable that unscheduled maintenance by City Power led to the death of a little girl.

[source:news24]