More details have emerged on the events leading to the crash of a
59-passenger luxury bus on its way from Aba, Abia State, which plunged
into a canal at Owode Elede, Lagos, killing three passengers and
injuring 23 others.
One of the passengers in the bus, Kenneth Ohai, said as the bus hit the
median around 3am on Friday morning and veered off the road, nosediving
into the canal in the process, the little child his co-passenger was
carrying on her lap bounced off the window and fell into the water.He
said the woman immediately dived out of the window to save her baby.
Saturday PUNCH confirmed from the Lagos State Emergency Management
Agency that the unidentified woman and her child were unharmed, as they
were both rescued after.
According to LASEMA, the child could not have been more than one year old.
Ohai, who was also one of the unharmed passengers rescued at the scene,
explained that he believed that the driver must have been momentarily
distracted before the crash.
“It was not as if there was a tyre blowout. Truly, if it had slowed down
in that part of the road, the bus would not have hit the concrete
demarcating the road.
“When it hit the median, the speed was too much
for the driver to put the bus right and it went the other way again and
hit the side of the canal. We were all screaming as it went down. The
way it fell, I thought a lot of people would have died.”
Another survivor, Kelechukwu Ese, said many of his co-travellers escaped
through the windows of the bus, adding that he could not explain how he
found himself beside the canal.
He said, “I boarded the bus from Enugu State. I wanted to attend an
event in Yaba, (Lagos). I sat by the window side and was asleep. Screams
of other passengers woke me up. I thought I was dreaming. People
started jumping out of the windows. And before I knew what was
happening, I landed on the ground with my knees.
“I didn’t feel the
pain initially and that was why I declined to be taken with others to a
hospital after we were given first aid treatment. I am now feeling some
pains.”
One of the three fatalities of the bus crash was the bus conductor, who
was said to have fallen into the water because he sat beside the door.
A LASEMA official said that as he fell, the bus might have fallen on him.
One of the residents, Atolagbe Akande, a local diver, who assisted
emergency officials in the rescue operation, said he was woken up by the
impact of the crash.
He said, “My house is not far from the canal. Around 3am, I heard a loud
sound of something falling. I initially thought I was dreaming.
Subsequently, I heard cries for help. That was when I realised something
terrible had happened.
“I called some neighbours and went to the scene. The emergency officials also arrived the scene a few minutes after.”