A North West salesman recalled how his attempt to avoid a pothole resulted in a horror confinement in a state hospital that nearly cost him his arm.

George Struwig was travelling in his bakkie on the R511 from Beestekraal to Brits, in North West, on Friday when he was forced to dodge a metre-wide pothole. His bakkie overturned and he was flung out of its window.

Struwig landed on the tar road, injuring his arm.

But that was only the beginning of the motor spares salesman's problems.

Struwig was rushed to the closet medical facility, the private Brits Medi-Clinic, but was not admitted because he did not have the cash deposit required and has no medical-aid cover.

He was transferred to the Ga-Rankuwa Hospital, in Pretoria. Desperate and in pain, he then went to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital, another state facility in Pretoria.

After three days without medical assistance, Struwig said his wound began to putrefy.

Appalled at the lack of care and service George Struwig had been given, his brother, Jan, transferred him to a private hospital in Pretoria.

"There were patients who had been [at Ga-Rankuwa Hospital] for weeks without treatment," Jan Struwig said. "The guy in his ward could not even feed himself and they would just leave his food by his bed and leave him watching it."

Struwig had surgery to clean his sceptic arm yesterday afternoon.

His doctor said he would have faced amputation if had he not been treated.

The DA's Gauteng health spokesman, Jack Bloom, said: "This is a shocking story that starts with the neglect of our roads that led to his accident, and then neglect at a state hospital.

"Hospital management needs to be drastically improved to prevent future cases like this."