This Cape Flats dad say he wouldn’t be alive it wasn’t for his cellphone.
Siraaj Abrahams, 41, says a bullet meant for his heart slammed into the cellphone instead.
The dad of five say he was returning home from a birthday party on Saturday night at about 11pm when he was attacked by robbers in front of his home in Ninth Avenue in Schaapkraal.
The businessman, who owns two companies in the IT and auto industries, was sitting in his Hyundai bakkie, waiting for his electric gates to open when a man rukked his door open.
Siraaj says: “I didn’t even see it coming; the first one just pulled open the door. He pulled me out of the bakkie and we began to struggle.
“During the struggle, the second one, who was two metres away, fired a shot at me.”
The dad lost consciousness, not realising that his Huawei P8 Light cellphone, which was in his left chest pocket, had caught the 9mm bullet.
The robbers fled the scene with R300 cash.
Siraaj’s 16-year-old daughter, who returned home from a friend, found her father lying outside his car.
Siraaj says: “When I woke, I just felt this burning feeling over my chest and felt to see where it was and if there was blood.”
His neighbour and friend Faried Bhyat, 48, says he examined Siraaj on the scene.
“I saw the bullet had hit the phone and ricocheted out.”
All Siraaj has to show for his “near death” experience is a tiny mark on his chest and a hole in his jacket where the bullet struck.
He says: “If it had not been for the cellphone, I would have died because it would have hit my heart.”
His wife Shamiela says her husband had been saved in act of “divine intervention”.
“He was wearing a tracksuit pants and couldn’t find the top and put on the old jacket which has broken pockets,” she says.
“He was also going to leave his cellphone at home because the battery was flat but decided he would charge it at his friend’s.
“So because the pockets was broken, he had to place the phone in the top pocket.”
Police spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel André Traut confirms the incident and says the suspects are still at large.