'I'm alive and well,' tweets Gavin Watson – the other Gavin Watson, that is

28 August 2019 - 07:00
By Matthew Savides
UK-based software developer Gavin Watson was caught up in a case of mistaken identity when Twitter users tagged him as the former Bosasa boss who died in a car crash on Monday.
Image: www.gavinwatson.com UK-based software developer Gavin Watson was caught up in a case of mistaken identity when Twitter users tagged him as the former Bosasa boss who died in a car crash on Monday.

When Gavin Watson went to bed on Sunday night, he had no idea he would have to spend a part of his Monday morning telling people he wasn’t dead.

But this was the reality for the 45-year-old software developer from the UK, who had his phone pinging for hours after being labelled on Twitter as the Bosasa boss who died in a horrific car crash at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.

Watson had barely opened his eyes when the realisation hit that it was not going to be a normal day.

“I gathered something was happening when I woke up on Monday morning to my phone going mad. I quickly realised that it was likely to be something that ‘the other Gavin Watson’ had done, as it was all SA related,” he told Times Select on Tuesday morning.