Some fun-looking clipart depicting teleportation
It was October 5th, 2017 - and Teteteke Gqotsi had just undergone abdominal surgery, after which he was placed in a room in Stellenbosch Hospital in its namesake South African town. Everything seemed to be going well in the recovery process, until the stricken patient suddenly vanished from his bed, seemingly only moments after he had been seen by a nurse. Thirteen days later, his lifeless body would be found in the ceiling in an isolated area of the hospital. Despite an investigation and an autopsy being carried out, the question remains - what happened to Teteteke Gqotsi?
Lethal Teleportation?[]
Teteteke (or at least his relatives) lived in the suburb of Kayamandi and Stellenbosch, South Africa. He was a father of six, and was 61 years old when he went into hospital for abdominal surgery. He was transferred to a ward in Stellenbosch Hospital so that he could recover from the operation. A nurse was tasked with attending to him, and she had just stepped out of his room to get some fresh linen. In this presumably very short period of time, Teteteke somehow vanished, being nowhere to be seen when the nurse reentered the room.
His brother, Christmas Khethwane, said that the surgery that had been performed on him meant that he shouldn't have been able to walk - and despite the blatantly unusual circumstances of his disappearance the hospital kept the event under wraps for two days, presumably just launching a very quiet search for the missing patient. His family received a phonecall from the hospital on October 7th, in which the hospital staff asked them if Teteteke was at home. Understandably confused, the family member who answered the phone insisted that he was at the hospital - and then when the staff member said that he 'had left', his family rushed to the hospital to look for their missing relative.
A photograph of Stellenbosch Hospital
The family searched the hospital and the grounds around it, but were unable to locate Teteteke. One of the nurses, presumably the one who had stepped out to find linen, stated that the last time she had seen the missing patient was at 5:15am. One day later, the family returned to the hospital - this time accompanied by police - to try and find out what had happened to their relative, but this was also unsuccessful. Teteteke's body was only found on October 20th by a group of workers doing renovations at the hospital. He was found in an 'isolated area in the ceiling at the facility' - leaving everyone completely baffled as to how he had gotten there.
His family was contacted once again by the hospital to come in on the 27th and discuss what had happened to him and how the investigation into the matter should proceed. Khethwane, who was struggling with the cost of burying his brother in the Eastern Cape when one of the source articles was written, noted that his family had been 'under the impression he was safe where he was'. I think this was a reasonable expectation.
According to a further source (apparently an article published on Octobether 30th), the hospital had performed an autopsy on Teteteke's body and had contacted his family once again. They told them that their relative had not died from complications in the abdominal surgery procedure, and vaguely implied that his death was not from natural causes at all. His family was also apparently given the impression that he was found to have been placed in the ceiling after he was already dead. The hospital said that they were waiting for more autopsy reports before revealing any more information, and the matter was quickly snapped up for investigation by the local police department.
Analysis[]
Now, some researchers have suggested that this case heavily suggests that Teteteke was murdered - and from a strictly-mundane viewpoint, this is the only thing that could've possibly happened. Yet this theory doesn't quite click in my mind, seeing as the nurse was only stepping out of the room to fetch some linen, and yet the immobile patient managed to vanish from his bed without any (mentioned) signs of a struggle being left behind. The website Mysterious Universe has named this as a case of teleportation, and although this seems to be an explanation that covers all the bases here - I am still sitting on the fence with regards to this case.
Sources[]
'The Missing Patient' - anomalyinfo.com
'How Did Patient End Up Dead In Hospital's Ceiling?' by Siyavuya Mzantsi for the Cape Times