The victims of the Enyobeni Tavern tragedy died a slow painful death.
The inquest into the deaths, sitting in the Mdantsane regional court, heard on Monday that if pressure had been relieved, some of the victims could have been saved.
Dr Sithandiwe Kunyuza testified that the deaths could not have been sudden.
Postmortem reports have said the deaths were due to asphyxiation due to pressure caused by a crowd crush.
“An earlier intervention could have prevented their deaths,” Kunyuza said.
She said that on the CCTV video footage she viewed she had seen a big crowd close to the door and a “heap of people piled on top of each other”, and other footage had shown that in another area people were not aware of what was happening.
“It seemed quite packed,” she said.
Other witnesses have testified about how jam-packed the tavern was, and how bodies were piled on top of each other.
The court heard that 17 victims had died at the tavern, two at the Mpilweni Healthcare Centre and one at Frere Hospital, while another had been brought to the Woodbrook mortuary in East London.
Kunyuza said that when she and her colleagues went to the scene in Scenery Park, they had found the place relatively small with one entry.
“When we visited the scene, it was altered,” she said.
“The bodies were scattered on the lower and upper area and an area we decided to call the VIP area.
“Upon viewing the footage, the only conclusion was crushed asphyxiation.
“It wasn’t necessarily a stampede, rather that they were pressed against each other.
“Being pressed against each other in a closed space with smoke of cigarettes and hooker pipes, having had pepper spray sprayed, was consistent with what we concluded was crushed asphyxia as the cause of death.”
Siyakhangela Ndevu, a person of interest in the inquest, asked Kunyuza if the conclusion reached in the postmortem had been politically influenced.
Kunyuza said there was no political influence.
Ndevu disputed that all the victims had died of crushed asphyxia, but later withdrew the line of questioning after evidence leader advocate Luvuyo Vena objected, reminding Ndevu of the evidence led during the inquest.
Carbon monoxide and intoxication were also detected in the victims, save for one.
Kunyuza said the carbon monoxide had made the victims more vulnerable.
In some victims, the percentage of carbon monoxide detected was more than the average.
She said this could have been a combination of fumes from the generator and smoking, but it had not been lethal.
Outside court, Ntombizonke Mgangala, speaking on behalf of the families of the victims, said they were happy they had finally learnt how their children died.
Mgangala said: “We have had unanswered questions for a long time and were asking ourselves what had led from stampede to crushed asphyxiation.
“It has been cleared now and we are grateful for that and it is clear why our children died.
“At least now we have a picture of what happened, but we will find closure when it’s made clear who should be prosecuted for the deaths of our children.
“That is what we are looking forward to.”
Daily Dispatch