A young up-and-coming soccer star was left writhing in agony without medical assistance while the referee waved play on.
Sixteen-year-old Dean Harrison had only recently returned to football after an injury that had left him on the sidelines for six months.
According to witnesses, the goalie for Forward Zone Football Club had an exceptional game. The Orlando Pirates under-17 team had their opposition under siege for most of the game at their Mayfair home ground, firing shots at goal from all parts of the field.
It was left to the last line of defence, goalkeeper Dean, to keep his team in the reckoning.
Then came a cross from the left. Dean rushed forward and leapt into the air, punching the ball clear with his left fist.
He did not notice the body hurtling towards him until he felt it slamming into his exposed ribcage.
"I could hear the impact from the stands," said his father John.
Dean could hardly move - he felt a jarring pain in his abdomen and the opposing Pirates player atop him.
The referee insisted the player get up, despite Dean's protestations. With no medical assistance available, it was left to the coach and his father to attend to him.
They dragged him off the field and loaded him into his father's car before taking him to hospital.
"This kid was seriously injured and the referee had no clue," said Forward Zone club chairman Rob Segal.
After being sent from one hospital with a diagnosis of bruising, and given an injection to relieve the pain, the family went to Linksfield Medi-clinic.
"When the radiologist saw him, she thought he'd been in a car accident," said Harrison.
Dean suffered "significant abdominal injuries", doctors who attended him told The Star.
They have told his father he might lose a kidney and that he faces a potentially career-ending injury. On Tuesday, the goalie underwent stent surgery, which will assist with the urine and blood leaking into his abdomen.
Speaking in muted tones from his ICU bed, Dean said the injuries were made all the more painful by the chirping from Pirates players as he was dragged off the field.
Segal said: "The most important thing is that you have to have medical. The guy could have been dead if his family didn't take him to hospital."
Head of Orlando Pirates development Augusto Palacios said there was a doctor and a hospital five minutes away from the field, if required on the day.
Although they sympathised with Dean's injuries, at no point was there an indication that a doctor was needed.
When the incident happened on Sunday, Harrison says he heard a young man in the stands telling a group of 10- and 11-year-old players: "You see, that is how you do it. You take them out."
Dean, rated by his club chairman as the most likely to succeed in a group of 400 players at Balfour Park, will have to miss out on a club trip to Holland.
The teen is on a soccer scholarship at St David's College in Houghton.