South Africa crash: Three Brits killed and another fighting for life after 75ft horror plunge near Cape Town

The car plummeted from a bridge and was left upside down in the water
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Jamie Pyatt31 October 2019

Three Brits have been killed after a car plummeted from a bridge in a horrific accident in South Africa.

The tourists had been on their way to an airport to fly back to England after driving up South Africa’s famous 450 mile Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth.

They were in a group of two married couples, with one husband and the driver left surviving and left in critical but stable conditions.

Three of the four tourists were highly respected Christian charity bosses and the other was a senior teacher at elite £17,000-a-year Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford, Oxon.

Peter Harris, right, survived a horrific road accident in South Africa in which his wife Miranda Harris, left, was killed
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They had begun the journey home when their double cab Toyota station wagon and luggage trailer was in collision with a Chrysler Neon as they crossed the Swartkops Bridge.

The two vehicles were travelling in the same direction over the two lane 300m bridge when it is thought a gust of wind blew the British vehicle’s trailer into a car driving alongside them.

The resulting impact flipped the station wagon with the terrified Harris’s and Naylor’s inside over the crash barrier and plunged it 75 feet into the river below smashing onto its roof.

Fellow motorists abandoned their cars and rushed down the embankment and helped by locals waded out into the chest deep water and pulled all the occupants from the vehicle.

Susanna Naylor and Chris Naylor both died in the accident
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The three victims were declared dead at the scene by a doctor and the two survivors were stretchered back up to the road and rushed to hospital.

Eastern Cape Department of Transport spokesperson Khuselwa Rantjie said the accident happened at 11.45am on Monday and a case of culpable homicide had been opened.

The three bodies will be flown home to the UK after post mortems have been carried out to establish if they were killed by the impact with the water or from subsequent drowning.

F​ormer clergyman Peter Harris, 67, who set up the international charity A Rocha with his wife was the only one of the group to survive.

Mother-of-four Miranda Harris was killed along with their close friends Chris Naylor, 58, who is the Chief Executive officer of A Rocha and his scholar wife Susanna, 54.

Charity founders Mr and Mrs Harris have four grown up children who all live near their Wiltshire home and have six grandchildren.

Mr Naylor of Oxford, Oxon, was a former science teacher who holds a Masters Degree from Cambridge University who joined the charity in 1997 and was appointed CEO in 2010.

While Mrs Nayor earned an MA in Medicine at Cambridge University where she met him then moved south to graduate with a BA in Clinical Medicine at Oxford University.

She then graduated with an MA in Advanced Educational Practice at the Oxford Brookes University which enabled her to become a teacher and she married university sweetheart Chris in1987.

The devoted couple had been married for 32 years and after both gaining their degrees moved abroad to Kuwait to become teachers but fled after Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded in 1990.

When the war was over they returned to Kuwait then moved around the Middle East teaching in Jordan and Lebanon before returning to the UK in 1997 to join up with the A Rocha charity.

However Susanna missed teaching and became Head of Science at Kitebrook Prep School in the Cotswolds and had just moved to the same post at Christ Church Cathedral School when she was killed.

The group had been enjoying a 10 day combined adventure and working holiday in South Africa visiting A Rocha field groups as well as taking time out to enjoy wildlife safaris.

A Rocha International spokesman said: “Peter and Miranda Harris, co-founders of A Rocha, and Chris Naylor who was our CEO and his wife Susanna were involved in a horrific car accident in South Africa.

“Miranda, Chris and Susanna did not survive. Peter and the driver of the car are being treated at a local hospital and are in a stable condition and we await further news.

“Above all, their families and friends are held in our prayers. We know that this comes as a profound shock to everyone in the A Rocha Family and to many others around the world”.

An A Rocha member in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, where they have a centre and who asked not to be named said: "I met the four of them last week and they were wonderful people.

The A Rocha charity – which means “The Rock” -​ is a worldwide Christian organisation has spread to over 20 countries including the USA, Brazil, South America, the Middle East, Australia, Canada and Africa and is based in the UK.

It has an income of £5m a year from government grants, trust funds, donations and churches and calls itself an "international network of environmental organisations with a Christian ethos"

The Harris’s had spent their life since 1983 growing the charity and moving around the world with it promoting its work living in many different countries before settling down again in the UK.

Among their many projects are the Captive Elephant Welfare Programme in India, the Atewa Forest Project in Ghana, the Kenya Bird Map Project and helping tackle the fires in the Amazon.

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