'Naka saved my children's lives' - Springbok shot in home invasion

“Naka Drotské saved my children’s lives.”

That is what Tinus Drotské, brother of the former Springbok rugby player, told Naka’s wife, Marzanne, after he was shot three times during a home invasion on Thursday night in Pretoria.

Naka, fellow former Springbok teammate Os du Randt and Tinus, with Tinus's three children, were together when four men barged into the house at 9.15pm.

“Naka jumped up and stormed them, and then they shot him three times, and then they luckily fled. The children, no-one else was harmed,” said Tinus.

Naka, who played numerous Tests for the Springboks and was part of the team that won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was shot in the right side of the chest, stomach and right arm.

Du Randt raced Naka to hospital, but veered off the road, causing two tyres to burst in the race to get medical help.

Marzanne said: “Two guys luckily picked them up and took them to the hospital.”

Naka is being treated at Montana Hospital in the capital.

“They are trying to stabilise him. He lost an awful lot of blood … They will have to fix his right elbow because everything there is fractured,” Marzanne said.

Naka and Du Randt were in Pretoria on business and met Tinus on a smallholding in Kameeldrift on the north-eastern outskirt of Pretoria.

Marzanne said they had never been the victims of such a crime and she thought Du Randt was joking when he phoned her.

“I said, ‘Os, it’s not funny, because my father has been in the ICU for the past two weeks’. And then he said he is not joking. I have to get in the car and drive to Pretoria.”

Marzanne arrived in Pretoria shortly after 1am.

Naka’s sons were en route to the US and were unaware of what had happened.