Our Star of the Week is Job Akwaake, a Keetmanshoop nurse who courageously risked his own life and waded through strong currents in the flooded Blouwes River in a frantic attempt to get an 11-month-old baby girl to the Keetmanshoop State Hospital for urgent medical attention.

Sadly the baby died in hospital on Saturday afternoon. What makes his deed more courageous is the fact Akwaake who has been working for almost one year at the Keetmanshoop hospital cannot swim, yet he risked his own life by crossing the river in an attempt to save another life. “I could also not become another spectator and watch how a mother was losing her baby and that’s when I decided to cross the river,” said the nurse. Akwaake explained that the hospital received a call from Blouwes about the baby and that the family was cut off by the heavily flowing river.  Akwaake, in a telephonic interview with New Era, said the baby’s mother, who seemed disabled, was panic-stricken from the other side of the river when she realised that they could not cross. “The baby was convulsing at this stage and I also saw that the mother was walking on crutches.  That’s when my instinct to help really kicked in. Mind you, I only later on realised that I cannot swim but I don’t think that would have stopped me from getting the baby to the hospital,” he said.