Daily Graphic, Front Page. Tuesday, March 03/09
Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho, Adawukwaa
A spot between Winneba and Potsin on the Accra-Winneba road which has become notorious for motor accidents yesterday claimed 11 more lives in yet another accident when nine people died on the spot and two others later at the Winneba Hospital following a crash involving a Ford passenger vehicle and a stationary truck.
The Ford, with registration number GW 4306 Q, on which 18 passengers were travelling from Kwamanteng to Accra, ran into the stationary truck at Adawukwaa, near the Okyereko Junction.
Over the past two weeks, 21 people, including those who perished yesterday, had lost their lives in accidents on the same stretch of road when their vehicles were involved in similar accidents.
On February 19, 2009, a Metro Mass Transit bus was involved in an accident, claiming the lives of four people. Again, on Saturday, February 28, 2009, a pick-up was involved in an accident with an articulated truck and a 51-year-old man, Mr Kingsley Amoako, lost his life, while his driver, Samuel Otiwa, is currently recuperating at the Winneba Hospital.
Then on Sunday, March 1, a soldier and three others lost their lives on that same stretch of road, while a woman carrying a baby at her back was also knocked down, with the baby dying instantly.
The nine who died in yesterday’s accident are currently at the morgue at the Winneba Hospital. They include two women, six men and a two-year-old baby boy.
Seven others, two women and five men, including the driver of the Ford, are responding to treatment at the same hospital.
The Winneba District Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Nana Ofori, confirmed yesterday’s accident to the Daily Graphic at Winneba.
He said his outfit was informed of the accident around 7.15 a.m. yesterday, saying that when they got to the scene, nine people were already dead and they managed to transport the dead and the injured to the Winneba Hospital, with two others dying at the hospital.
Describing the scene as “horrible”, he said information gathered so far indicated that the Ford driver, who gave his name as Isaac Nketia, 31, attempted to overtake another passenger vehicle but ended up running into the stationary truck, with registration number GT 5020 C, which had burst its back tyre and had parked there the previous evening.
He said the police had arrested the driver of the articulated truck, Amidu Ahmed, to help with their investigations.
Deploring the rate at which accidents occurred on the Winneba-Kasoa stretch of road, ASP Ofori said within a period of two weeks five accidents had occurred, resulting in the death of 21 people.
When the Daily Graphic visited the victims at the hospital, the Medical Superintendent, Dr Prosper K. Aniwa, said the five were in stable condition.
The Hospital Administrator, Mr Anthony Appiah-Nti Obeng, who took the Daily Graphic round the ward, said the hospital was overwhelmed by the number of accident victims that it attended to monthly and called on the government to declare that stretch of road an accident-prone zone to warn drivers.
One of the victims who are on admission at the hospital and who gave his name as Yona Adjoh Bofu, a 34-year-old photographer, said he and five others were travelling to Kwamanteng from Tema New Town to attend a friend’s father’s funeral.
He said they joined the Ford from Kwamanteng to Accra and that on the way the driver picked other passengers.
The driver of the Ford, who also managed to speak to the Daily Graphic but was visibly in pain, said he resides at Kwamanteng and normally started his daily work from there to Accra before he loaded to Takoradi.
He said the accident occurred because the tree branches and the stones the stationary truck driver had put on the road to warn other drivers were not visible enough and he ended up driving on the stones, which threw him off balance, resulting in his hitting the truck.
Others on admission at the hospital include Ishmael Tetteh, Martin Alakyerema, a 41-year-old student of the Winneba Training College, and Samuel Koomson, 22.
No comments:
Post a Comment