In Picture: Passengers injured as bus topples on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

Posted by admin Headlines Monday, October 10th, 2011

Scene of the accident

At least 12 people were critically injured when a commercial coastal bus hit the demarcation by the side of the Warewa Long Bridge on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Sunday and toppled over.

Passersby promptly gathered around the bus to lift it up, while the injured passengers were rescued from the bus.

The bus conductor broke both his legs in the accident and sympathisers tried different methods to carry him without hurting him more as the man writhed in pain.

The driver of the bus appeared to have sustained minimal injury but he could not speak and seemed to be in shock.

According to a passenger, Jamiu Saheed, who only had a scratch on his arm, the bus with registration number XA 124 SGB was on its way to Ibadan when it had a brake failure on the bridge.

He said as the driver tried to control the bus, it hit the side of the bridge and it turned over on its side.

Saheed said, “I was actually sleeping when I heard the shouting of the other passengers in the bus. By the time I realised what was happening, the bus had hit the side of the bridge and toppled over, landing on its side.

“We all were slammed into the side of the bus as it landed. I just give glory to God because no one died. But my concern right now is how to get all these critically injured people to a hospital.”

Sympathisers helped some of the passengers, who were critically injured and could not call their relatives.

Despite the quick intervention of passersby, the injured had to lie on the road for a long while as no motorists volunteered to help take them to the hospital.

An injured lady was bleeding profusely from her arm and her chest and kept pleading with bystanders to help her.

Officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Lagos State Command, were alerted about the incident but they could not get to the scene until 30 minutes later.

One of the officials, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity because he was not the spokesperson of the FRSC, ascribed the delay to a gridlock that resulted from the accident.

The casualties were later taken to the state Accident and Emergency Centre, Toll Gate, Alausa in the FRSC van
-Punchwp_posts