Springbok Jannie du Plessis and Wife Ronel Open Up About Son's Drowning Tragedy
- Former Springbok prop Jannie du Plessis and his wife Ronel lost their ten-month-old son Jan-Nathaniël in a pool drowning on Jannie's 39th birthday
- The couple, both doctors, grieved in deeply different ways in the years that followed the tragedy at their Krugersdorp home
- Ronel channelled her grief into painting her son's portrait and writing a memoir, Anderkant die Water, due out in October
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Former Springbok star Jannie du Plessis and his wife Ronel spoke candidly for the first time about the loss of their youngest son since his death five years ago.
Source: Getty Images
On 17 November 2021, a Tuesday that also happened to be Jannie's 39th birthday, the couple's ten-month-old son Jan-Nathaniël drowned in the pool at their home in Krugersdorp.
In an interview with YOU magazine, Ronel disclosed that a babysitter had been watching over him and his three older siblings, Rosalie, Helé and Frans-Andreas, while Jannie and Ronel attended their regular 6 pm prayer meeting. Before leaving, Jannie had come home from work and spent time with his son on his lap.
Midway through the service, their pastor quietly pulled them aside and said they needed to return home. On the drive back, Ronel phoned the babysitter. The silence she was met with told her something was terribly wrong. Jan-Nathaniël had crawled away from the others and fallen into the pool. Paramedics were already at the house when the couple arrived, and despite Jannie's desperate efforts to revive his son, it was too late.
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A Family Learning to Carry the Weight
Speaking to YOU magazine, Ronel has said she never blamed the babysitter, describing it as a tragic accident rather than anyone's fault. "It broke me," she has said of losing her child.
In the years that followed, the two grieved very differently. Ronel, the more emotionally expressive of the two, found herself having to show up for three living children while her own heart was shattered. Jannie threw himself into work until a friend's child also died and, as Ronel has described it, the dam wall broke for him too.
The family kept the pool, despite Jannie's initial instinct to fill it in, because their three older children loved swimming. Over time, Ronel says the pool has become a place where she feels a sense of closeness to her son rather than a reminder of pain. She turned to painting his portrait as a way of processing her grief, and eventually to writing. Her memoir, Anderkant die Water (Beyond the Water), will be published in October and tells the story of their loss and her path toward healing.
The family also shifted how they mark Jannie's birthday, now celebrating it a month after the actual date so the occasion does not sit under the shadow of Jan-Nathaniël's anniversary.
Source: Getty Images
Rugby, Medicine and a Record Bull
Long before this chapter of his life, Jannie du Plessis built a distinguished career on the rugby field. Born in Bethlehem in the Free State in 1982, he made his Springbok debut in the 2007 Tri-Nations against Australia, in the same match as his brother Bismarck, making them the 23rd pair of brothers to be capped for South Africa.
He went on to earn 70 Test caps, win the 2007 Rugby World Cup, and claim bronze at the 2015 tournament before finishing his playing days at Montpellier in France.
Away from medicine and rugby, Jannie runs the Janmarck Beefmaster cattle stud near Bethlehem alongside his brothers Bismarck and Tabbie. In July 2026, the operation made headlines when the bull JAN 23-3125 sold for R1.1 million at the national Beefmaster auction in Parys, setting a new South African record.
Five years on, Ronel says the darkest period is behind them and was quoted by YOU Magazine.
"Today I'm a different person," she has said.
"I'm no longer in that dark place."
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Source: Briefly News
