'I survived rape, disembowelment and throat slitting – now I face deadly condition'

A mother who survived a horrifying ordeal and lived to share her remarkable story has now been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, admitting: “I can’t even inspire myself at the moment, which is very frightening.”

At just 27, Alison Botha was kidnapped and brutally raped.

Her assailants disembowelled her, leaving her holding her own intestines while her nearly completely severed head “flopped backwards and almost rested between [her] shoulder blades”.

Despite being hailed for her extraordinary courage in the face of death, she has found it difficult following her recent surgery.

“As a positive person and an inspirational speaker, I find this hard to admit, I can’t even inspire myself at the moment, which is very frightening,” Alison confessed in a Facebook post. “

And it is only when you are depleted of all your strength and reserves that you recognise your weaknesses. I know from experience that I WILL recover from this too, but I need to accept that it takes time.””, reports the Daily Record.

It remains uncertain whether the condition developed as a result of the numerous physical traumas she has suffered.

Originally hailing from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Alison was employed as an insurance broker when, on December 18, 1994, after a night out with friends, she headed home.

She remembered that “I had just turned off the engine and flicked off the headlights – it was so routine that I didn’t all in one swift movement”.

As Alison reached for her laundry on the passenger seat, she was startled by a blond man suddenly entering her car.

Frans DuToit, the son of a police officer, threatened her life, insisting he meant no harm but just needed the car for an hour.

Alison recalled feeling “strangely immobilised”. Du Toit ominously stated: “You live in number one don’t you”.

She suggested he simply take the car, but he maintained that he “wanted company”, as reported by Morbid. Du Toit drove past a group of people before encountering Theuns Krugeras.

Assuming the pseudonym “Clinton”, Du Toit moved the driver’s seat forward as Krugeras climbed in, introducing Alison as “meet my friend Susan” – another false name.

The drive towards a suburb outside Port Elizabeth was eerily silent until Du Toit broke the quiet with, “Theuns doesn’t speak good English.”

Du Toit slowed down and halted on the sand. Krugeras exited the vehicle, and then Clinton violated Alison.

Krugeras began to attack her too but abruptly ceased, shouting “no I can’t do this” and inadvertently calling his accomplice “Frans”. Alison committed this name to memory.

Frans then warned Alison, “if we take you into town now you’ll go to the police”.

Du Toit posed a chilling question: “what do you think Oom Nick would want us to do with her.”

Oom Nick is an Afrikaans reference to Satan. Krugeras responded, “I think he wants us to kill her.”

The duo commanded Alison to strip off her jewellery and clothes before Du Toit strangled her into unconsciousness, whispering apologies as he towered over her.

Upon regaining consciousness, she saw a man’s arm sweeping across her face as he slashed her throat.

She recounted the terrifying experience, stating she “could hear the flesh slit.”

It was later revealed that her throat had been cut 16 times by her assailants, leaving Alison on the verge of decapitation.

Alison managed to roll onto her stomach.

She said: “I tried to hold my breath but I realised I had no control over my breathing – I moved my hand up to cover my neck – my whole hand disappeared into it, but it seemed to have worked – the sound was silenced.”

Pretending to be dead, she overheard one attacker question whether she had survived, with the other replying “no one can survive that”.

Desperately clinging to life and resolved to see justice done, despite her severe injuries, she etched her attackers’ names into the sand, poignantly adding “I love mom.”

In an extraordinary twist of fate, she noticed some lights and realised she was closer to the road than she had initially thought.

Summoning every last bit of strength, she dragged herself onto her knees and, upon touching her stomach, felt something “tepid, wet and slimy”.

To her utter horror, she looked down to find her intestines spilling out from a wound in her abdomen.

Having sustained over 50 stab wounds to her abdomen, she utilised a shirt to hold her intestines in place, while fragments of debris and shattered glass lacerated her hands and knees. Half of her thyroid was protruding from her neck.

She recounted: “My head had flopped backwards and almost rested between my shoulder blades. I expected to feel something but was completely taken aback when my hand disappeared inside me almost like I had swallowed myself.”

With one hand propping her head upright and the other containing her intestines, she managed to crawl to the middle of the road and lie horizontally to force passing vehicles to stop.

On sighting the first car, she said she ” frantically waved as fast as I could” – but the vehicle swerved around her. The next thing Alison saw was a woman screaming and a young man kneeling over her.

It was 2.45am by the time she was found – meaning the duration from her abduction to her rescue had lasted just an hour and a half.

Tiaan Eilerd, a vet, was enjoying drinks with friends at a pub when he stumbled upon Alison.

He immediately checked her vital signs and successfully repositioned her thyroid back into her throat – a decision Alison would later describe as a “lifeline”.

The vet was astounded that Alison had survived, comparing her appearance to a “creature straight out of a Dickens novel” with her neck horrifically slashed open “almost ear to ear”.

Had Tiaan not acted promptly to move her thyroid, she would almost certainly not have survived. Alison remembered that one of her attackers expressed a desire to ruin her reproductive organs.

Yet, against all odds, she later had two children.

After extensive surgery, Alison was moved to the ICU.

As news of her horrific experience spread, police discovered that her assailants were already out on bail for rape.

Both men, who identified themselves as Satanists, pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder.

Du Toit confessed to attacking another woman but claimed he lost the “desire to kill her” following the assault.

However, in October 2024, Alison’s ghostwriter Marianne Thamm revealed to Daily Maverick that the mother had suffered an aneurysm in late September.

She underwent surgery to stop the bleeding in Cape Town and slipped in and out of consciousness before undergoing further brain surgery to address a build-up of fluid.

The people of South Africa rallied around her, donating to her trust fund to help cover the costs of her medical treatment.

It remains unclear whether the condition emerged as a result of the many physical traumas she has endured.

In July last year she wrote: “Lovely, special people – may whatever you are going through be short-lived and may you take courage from the fact that it is only a ‘patch’.

She recalled that “What is wonderful about a ‘patch’ is that you enter on one side – often unexpectedly – but if you keep going – despite the weight and depression of it – there will come a time when you miraculously exit on the other side.”

“Patches always have an end – so take heart and keep moving. Joy, enthusiasm and happiness are at the other end of the patch – for you, for me, and for everyone like us.”

Back in 1995, both offenders were handed life sentences with no prospect of release.

Alison embarked on campaigning when legislation threatened to shift in 2012, cautioning: “can you imagine if just 100 lifers were reintroduced to society without rehabilitation”.

Her advocacy efforts proved instrumental in ensuring such criminals stayed imprisoned.

Yet, on 4 July 2023, Du Toit and Krugeras, having completed merely 28 years of their life sentence, were freed on parole without Alison being notified.

Posting on her Facebook page, Alison Botha conveyed her shock: “The day I hoped and prayed would never come. When I was asked ‘How will you feel if they ever get parole?’ – my immediate answer was always – ‘I’m hoping I’ll never find out.'”.

Alison has chronicled her harrowing experience and remarkable survival in her book “I Have Life” and the film “Alison”.

She has spoken to hundreds of people, inspiring them with her story of how mindset, faith, and determination enabled her to endure.

She was bestowed with the esteemed Rotarian Paul Harris Award for ‘Courage Beyond the Norm’ and became the first recipient of Femina magazine’s ‘Woman of Courage’ award, while also being acknowledged as Port Elizabeth’s Citizen of the Year.