During cross-examination on Monday, Van Breda said he hadn’t told Dr Michelle van Zyl that he had lost consciousness for nearly three hours after the attacks that left his parents Martin and Teresa and brother Rudi dead, and his sister, Marli, fighting for her life.
Van Breda claims he fell down the stairs after throwing the axe, used in the murders, at the intruder.
His girlfriend’s phone was on voicemail, and he returned upstairs and lost consciousness, perhaps from the “shock” of seeing his dead mother and critically injured sister.
Two hours and forty minutes passed before he tried to contact emergency services, yet he failed to tell the doctor that information when he was examined at Vergelegen Medi-Clinic on the evening of 27 January.
He also did not go to his family members after the attack, as he didn’t think he could help them.
He told the court: “If I thought I could have helped them, I would have done so.”
Instead, he smoked three cigarettes one after the other at the kitchen counter in a bid to “stay calm” while on the phone to emergency services.
Despite a list of emergency numbers up on the family’s fridge, Van Breda said he Googled the number.
Emergency services operator Janine Philander testified that she thought the call was a prank and that Van Breda had giggled.
Senior prosecutor Susan Galloway had also pointed out that during the call Van Breda had said “my family was attacked” and not “we have been attacked”.
ANA