Rescue workers ignored calls to save my drowning father – UNICAL worker’s son

The incident that happened on Monday, May 27, 2013, still remains a mystery in the minds of the family of Mr. Friday Sampson, three weeks after, as the corpse of their father has yet to be recovered.

Sampson, an indigene of Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, was washed away by the flood mysteriously while walking on IBB Road in Calabar, the Cross River State capital. The employee of the University of Calabar was on his way to join his son and wife after he had assisted to clear the traffic that followed the downpour along IBB Way by Ekong Etta Street junction in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State.

The first daughter of the deceased, Patience Sampson, had told journalists that her father had gone to UJ Esuene Stadium with her brother, Imeh, to pick their mum, Uduak, who had just returned from a journey.

“He was coming back from the stadium where he went to pick our mother who just returned from Uyo. Along IBB Way, there was a hold-up and my father blared and blared his horn. But the driver ahead of him did not move so he stepped out to find out what was going on. He mistakenly stepped into the gutter and was carried away,” she said.

She said her mother and her 18-year-old brother, who accompanied their father to the stadium, were in the car but could not rescue him because of the intensity of the rain.

“The rain was falling very heavily and the flood was rapid that my mother and younger brother could not do anything to rescue him while he was being carried away by the flood,” she said.

But narrating the incident to Saturday PUNCH, Imeh said he was actually the one driving when they encountered traffic. Imeh said he was the one who came down from the car to find out what was causing the traffic jam before his father later joined him.

“On May 27, my mum travelled and when she came back she told us to come and pick her up by UJ Esuene Stadium. I drove the car in company with my father. Just at the Ekong Etta junction along IBB Way, we encountered a traffic jam since the lights were not working. We were there for over 30 minutes when I discovered that the car ahead of us had developed fault. I helped to come down to clear it off the road. My dad also joined,” he said.

Imeh recalled that within a twinkle of an eye, his father stepped into a manhole on the walkway and disappeared from the scene.

The deceased was not the only person washed away by flood on that day. Saturday PUNCH learnt that five other persons, whose bodies were sighted at various points, were also swept away.

Imeh lamented that the State Emergency Management Agency ignored calls to rescue his father. Worse still, the police had failed to show any interest in finding his father’s body, even though a formal report was made to them about three weeks ago.

The UNICAL worker’s son said that after overcoming his initial shock at the sudden disappearance of his father, waded in the flood for a kilometre and emerged at Rabana roundabout, without finding his father. The venture earned him bruises on his face and cracks in his ribs.

Missing slabs are a common feature on Calabar’s walkways. This threat has left residents of the state capital at risk of plunging into manholes during heavy rains.

Imeh, who described what, had happened to his father as disastrous, noted that despite several calls to SEMA, it was only after one hour that firefighters came to the scene, but without any equipment to organise a search and rescue mission.

He said his father was dressed in a brown French suit jacket and white shirt when the incident happened.

He said, “People immediately called SEMA, but there was no response. Fire service people came after one hour. After then, nobody has come to find out if we have been after to retrieve the corpss. Not even the police, even after we had made an official report at a police station.

“I know whatever has happened to us, government may want to say that it is a private matter. But it is a case of negligence because those missing slabs ought to have been replaced without government waiting for people to plunge into the manholes, especially after a downpour.”

Imeh lamented that his family had spent a fortune trying to recover the corpse. He noted that they discovered that several other persons were washed away by flood on that same day.

He said the family had combed all the drainages right from Ekong Etta Street by IBB Way where the incident happened up to the terminating point at the Cross River University of Technology, a distance of about 10 kilometres, without success.

“We have spent so much on the search and the amount of pain we have gone through is nothing compared to our agony. If emergency agencies had responded to our distress calls, we would not have gone through this kind of difficult situation.

“We had conducted the search up to CRUTECH. People are even suggesting that we go and dredge the end point to see if we could trace his body. We have searched and searched and even organised prayers in the belief that God will intervene. We are begging government to intervene so that we can recover the corpse.

“I’m pained that this issue is coming to the limelight this way. It is a very shameful thing because he was a top person in the society. He was senior staff of the UNICAL Department of Works. He has a family,” Imeh said.

When contacted, the Director-General of SEMA, Mr. Vincent Aquah, said his agency responded to the distress calls by contacting the state Fire Service Department. He said the fire service swiftly dispatched a team to the scene.

Aquah noted that it was not the duty of his agency to carry out such rescue missions but that of the Cross River State Emergency Response Centre. He said it was the centre’s responsibility to contact the fire service.

He said, “I only heard that a lawyer called SEMA that a man and his son were swept away by flood during the downpour of that day. People confuse SEMA for the Emergency Response Centre. When the Emergency Response Centre gets such a distress call, they in turn contact the lead agency, which is the fire service in this regard.”

He said SEMA would carry out a rigorous enlightenment campaign to educate members of the public on this matter since there would be more rain as predicted this year.

Aquah pointed out that since most of the drainages were not reinforced, it was imperative for people to be mindful of how they move in the rain to avoid being carried away by flood.

Culled from Punch