Tuesday, October 13, 2009

IN CASE OF A ROAD ACCIDENT.

Most of the time, I just mind my business. While I was doing just that in the company of a friend of mine, we suddenly heard a loud crash sound from across the road. What could that have been? My friend wondered. I don't care, I thought to myself as I hoped he would drop the subject. Something must have happened, we saw a large truck slow down right before the crashing sound. I succeeded at drifting his attention to our business but then noises from the tarmac road which we could not clearly see from where we were captured my friend's attention again and so he insisted we go check it out. Alright, he won. Let's go see what's up. So we went.

Alas, he was right too, it was an accident (He'd thought it was). Two grown men laid on the ground bleeding profusely with broken limbs. It was a gruesome scene and my mood was immediately changed. One of the men was a bodaboda guy (cyclist) and the other one must have been the passenger. The passenger man was the one with broken limbs, agonized by pain but trying to hide it in his facial expression. the bodaboda man on the other hand was bleeding from the back of his head, he must have had a concussion. The bicycle was scrap metal.

Now, I stood there and I wanted to leave. Not because I can't stand the sight of blood but because I couldn't stomach the fact that everyone else was just staring and doing nothing! It was like a freaking show. I was just hoping for someone to do something, I guess that's what everyone else was thinking. But nobody did anything except watch this short version of a reality show.

It was then I started to ask myself, what can I do to help these people... call the cops? No, 999 doesn't work. The paramedics, do we even have those in Kenya? The ambulance? Well, even if I wanted to call I didn't have any hot line number and I still don't. So who is to blame, me and my ignorance or the system? That is why I did not want to be among that crowd who just hovered around and asked stupid questions like 'what happened?'. If I stuck around I'd just be like them. Typically Kenyan, idle enough to not pass another chance to be idle! What is wrong with us, huh? to make things worse, a police (or maybe it was the army, AP... I can't tell the difference) truck passed by and that is all they did- passed by. I felt like vomiting, I can't do any first aid, all I was thinking was shouldn't anyone be doing something fast?!

The story has a happy ending though, I said a little prayer and I think God heard me because a personal pick-up vehicle stopped to offer to carry the accident victims to the hospital. Now that made me feel good. There were still human beings left among us, even if I am not among them. Because I don't know how I would have felt leaving a couple of injured people by the roadside and get back to my own 'business', after seeing how much pain they were going through.

Everyone else is not prepared for such emergencies, next time I want to know what to do. So if you have any suggestions or you have police or emergency numbers, hit me.

Also, is it morally right to take pictures at such scenes?

2 Educated Opinions Yet:

Sleek said...

Did u finally get some numbers?

Wyndago said...

Not yet. But I can't say that I have been looking. I guess we forget too fast when everything seems okay- I'm guilty as charged. But now that you've asked, I'll make sure I get them and try if they work by the end of this week. How ironic, these numbers should be public!

Do you know any?

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