Terrible Accident Along Port-Harcourt - Owerri Road, Imo State.

Today, Friday 17th June, I witnessed the aftermath of an accident that was so gory that i didn't have the emotional strength to take enough pictures as any blogger in my position would have loved too. 

The car crash which happened along Owerri - Port Harcourt expressway involved a Mitsubishi L200 intercity bus heading from Owerri to Umuagwo and a Toyota Sienna coming from Port Harcourt to Owerri. The bus who had followed 'one way' in a bid to escaped VIO officers whose recent actions in Owerri should become a point of concern, was trying to crossover to its original lane when the Sienna which was on a high speed ran into it.

Immediately, the crash happened, there was an instant gathering, commotion and confusion erupted. Passers-by were gathering round the mangled vehicles in an attempt to rescue survivors from the wreckage while some of them instantly turned 'photorecorders' (combination of photographers and video recorders) and motorists who witnessed the crash were slowing down to get a HD view of the crash while some were parking by the road side in a bid to see how they could assist.

Now to the point of concern, as the increasing crowd of witnesses and sympathizers were sighing and cursing and trying to pin the blame on one of the drivers of the vehicles involved in the crash, only very FEW people showed true concern about the condition of the injured passengers lying on the road. There was blood everywhere, fractured limbs and some of the passenger just laid on the bare road alive and unattended to with blood gushing out from different parts of their bodies though at some point, members of the crowd started carrying injured passengers to the side of the road like sacks of rice, without checking to see if it was okay or not to move the injured victims.

This happened because very few Nigerians, partially including myself, are enlightened on the act of First Aid in the event of an accident.

In the multitude of people gathered around the scene I was shocked to note that virtually nobody had an emergency number, that is, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) or Police on their phone or off hand, as people kept shouting amidst the wailing and arguing "wey all those police wey dey here na na? abeg, who get police number here na abi na road safety here make e call am o?"

At that point, I had taken a few pictures (blogger must work na!) and proceeded to dial 747 belonging to the Nigerian police, "you are not authorized to call this number" was the network response I got, so I dialed 122 belonging to Federal Road Safety Commission and it went through.

Now another point of concern, I spent the next 15 minutes listening to the programmed 'Alobam' by Phyno playing repeatedly on an 'EMERGENCY' line with no answer up till the point I ended the call because the driver of the public transport I entered had decided he had seen enough and ushered us to return back to the bus or be left behind.

I have often read about how accident victims died on their way to hospital or at the hospital and having witnessed what I saw today, I understood why because, it became clear that the first response given to accident victim receives and how fast they receive it goes a long way to determine if the eventually survive that accident or not.

Our bus eventually left the scene with me looking back and asking myself about when our over half a century old country Nigeria would eventually get it right as civilized society which truly values the human life because reviewing everything that happened the moment i was there, made me realize that Nigeria and Nigerians were still quite away from the true definition of a civilized society.

I hope and pray no life was eventually lost...

More Photos below