Jansen van Vuuren

Frederik Jansen van Vuuren (c. 1957/58 – 5 March 1977) was a race marshal at the 1977 South African Grand Prix.
Going into the race, Van Vuuren was a young 19-year-old fan of Formula One who volunteered successfully to be a marshal at the South African GP for the first time.
On lap 22, Renzo Zorzi suffered an engine fire caused by a split pipe, and pulled off to the side of the track to retire the car. As the nearest marshals, Van Vuuren and his fellow fire marshal rushed across the track to extinguish the flames, while Hans-Joachim Stuck and Tom Pryce neared at high speed. Van Vuuren's colleague managed to get across the track safely while Stuck had to swerve to avoid Van Vuuren.
Pryce, however, was running close behind Stuck, and as a result, was unable to avoid slamming into Van Vuuren. Van Vuuren's fire extinguisher was let loose, flying into and fatally broke Pryce's skull, nearly decapitating the Welshman. Pryce's hurtled towards the bend, with the dead driver still inside, before taking the of Jacques Laffite out of the race. As for Van Vuuren, he was nearly cut in half in the collision, and was propelled a fair distance from where the incident directly happened. The injuries were so severe that his body was only identified after the race director had summoned all the marshals, finding that Van Vuuren was not among them.
Some blamed Zorzi for the accident, because it would have been safer had he pulled off into the pits to retire rather than stay out on track.
The deaths cast a huge shadow over the race, and there was no joy on the podium after the winner Niki Lauda was told of Pryce's death. The incident was recorded on film, with the footage being available online. However, it is incredibly graphic as it shows van Vuuren's remains being launched into the air.
Category:1977 deaths
Category:People
Category:Marshals
Category:People killed during a Grand Prix