Unexpected day of police, motorbikes and unusual accidents
Last Monday, the day after Easter did not go according to plan. Most orthodox churches observe that day as the Emmaus Day in commemoration of the day Jesus revealed himself to two disciples on the road to Emmaus which was a town seven miles away from Jerusalem.
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I had joined in the picnic and intended to attend a meeting when a single phone call changed the day’s complexion from light joy to deep near-depression.
The phone call said a friend of friends had been involved in a bizarre road accident while riding his motorbike on the Ring Road. According to their version, while travelling on his bike, the man, a pastor of an independent church, was approached aggressively by three uniformed policemen and another person in civilian clothes.
In his bid to avoid being pulled down or assaulted as he feared he might be, he was knocked down by an oncoming vehicle. According to this version, the police picked up the bike and left the accident victim to be taken to the hospital by some kind Samaritans.
I decided to join the friends of the victim at the Nima Police Station to seek clarification. We were received by DSP Felicia Ayesu, the District Commander, and the District Crime officer, Abena Obenewa; and I must commend them for their sense of duty and compassion.
Of course, the police had a different version of the incident. According to the District Commander, the victim refused to stop when ordered by the police and was knocked down as he tried to escape.
Now, it has to be explained that the pastor was stopped by the police not because he had committed any offence or suspected of any offence but this was part of a general operation in which EVERY motorbike was to be stopped and seized.
The much wider question must be why and how the police set about to seize every motorbike in the Greater Accra Region. The police officers justified the rather draconian measure on the grounds that the policy had yielded some criminals.
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You could argue that if ALL Ghanaians were similarly arrested, some would turn up to be criminals. This policy simply criminalises all motorbikers; in law, people are presumed innocent until proved guilty.
If the police wanted to ensure that all motorbikes were properly registered, they could have set a time frame within which all bikers would have to show their documents or face the consequences.
In any case, since last Monday, I have seen 100s of bikers riding without their helmets, - breaking the most obvious motorbike law with impunity every day right before the eyes of the “visible” police.
After much boisterous argument, the commander and her officers, including the crime officer, decided to go to the hospital to see the victim. This singular compassionate act made all the difference.
I think this has to do with the fact that both officers are women and their milk of human kindness has not dried up completely despite their outward show of official toughness.
The victim’s friends and family were pleased that the police officers had gone beyond the call of duty to pay a visit to the victim after promising a vigorous investigation into the incident.
I got to the hospital just as several vehicles arrived bearing victims of a fresh motor accident. In theory, we have an ambulance service but in practice, no one ever calls an ambulance to any accident. In the main, ambulances ferry people between hospitals but hardly perform emergency duties.
There is no doubt that many accident fatalities occur because of wrong handling of victims by people with hearts of gold but who have no training or equipment for the job.
Indeed, one of the accident victims remained in one of the taxis for more than 30 minutes without being seen by a single doctor or nurse. This, I suspect, was because the public “pronounced him dead”.
You would expect the Police Hospital to be the best prepared facility for accident victims but it is obvious that the doctors and nurses are struggling to cope with the demand.
The fact that the poor man, presumed dead, was left unattended in the taxi suggests an absence of a clear policy on how accident victims are received and treated.
We have to receive an answer to this simple question: do we have an ambulance service and how does it work? It is possible that the ambulances remain at post waiting to be summoned to accidents and emergencies.
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Unfortunately, not many people are aware of these ambulances and how to contact them when they are needed.
In other parts of the world, the ambulance service is widely advertised and people are encouraged, indeed expected to call them whenever and wherever an accident occurs.
This service in Ghana barely registers on anyone’s consciousness which is why no one would call an ambulance even when an accident occurs on the Ring Road.
In both the case of the pastor and the later accident, the victims were handled by drivers and assorted persons without the slightest training about how to handle accident victims.
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It is likely that many lives are lost through such mishandling. Perhaps, we need a visible ambulance strategy but one that goes beyond simply hanging about at street junctions.
After spending the better part of three hours talking about accidents and being with accident victims, I set off for the drive home both shocked and depressed at what I had seen and heard.
Going by the shortest route to my house, I had not expected what happened next. The traffic was thicker than it had been in the last 72 hours although still below the average for that stretch of road.
One of the joys of staying in Accra during the Easter holiday is the relative quietude. Many people leave for their hometowns; people without hometowns go to Kwahu. So Accra streets seem wider and cleaner than usual.
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On this particular evening, the previous night’s rain had drowned the heat and despite my anxious thoughts about the state of Ghana’s health care, I was enjoying a calm cruise home.
At a point midway on the journey, I hit traffic and came to a gentle stop at the end of the queue of cars; then I heard harsh screeching sound and felt the effect of the big bang even before I realised I had been hit from behind and was careering towards the car ahead, which was a small taxi.
So, it took the hit from my car a bit more dramatically and skidded onto the shoulder where a proper sidewalk should be if our capital was a properly planned city.
The man driving the large 4 x 4 vehicle behind me was as drunk as a Lord. In another country, the police would put him away for his own safety and that of the public but I knew what would happen at the police station so I declined the request by the taxi driver to report the case.
I had once reported a similar accident and I remembered what happened at the Legon Police Station on that occasion. It was a cruel farce.
As I made my catlike getaway, I heard the taxi driver blackmailing the drunken lord for some cash to repair his car, but I couldn’t be bothered. I had seen more than enough. It was not meant to be that kind of day but I was just happy to live to tell the tale.
gapenteng@outlook.com