At least three persons have been confirmed dead and another critically injured in an accident involving a Volkswagen Golf and a Tipper along the Evwreni axis of the East-West road, in Ughelli North Local Government area of Delta State.
It was gathered that the deceased were first taken to the emergency unit of the Ughelli Central Hospital by men of the Ughelli Unit of the Federal Road Safety Corps, where they were confirmed dead by the doctor on duty.
According to an eyewitness who was able to rescue the only surviving occupant of the Volkswagen Golf, the incident happened at about 3:00 pm on Saturday.
The eyewitness who identified himself as Edafe explained that both the Tipper and the Golf were coming from the same direction, however, due to the traffic along their lane, the golf driver tried to beat the traffic when he saw an upcoming vehicle in the opposite direction. It was in the process of trying to avoid the opposite vehicle, the driver swung back to its lane with the speed it was moving and hit the tipper in the traffic.
He said, “I was coming with my passenger between Unenurhe and Evwreni when I saw the hold-up, I came down to see what was happening, then I saw the accident, some of them were shouting for help, two people supposed to survive, then I dropped my passenger and rescued only one person.
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“That is the one in Calvary Hospital. And also the speed they use to drive is too much, that is why the accident happened.
“When I got to the hospital, the workers seized me that I was not going to leave the place, that I was the only one they know. I tried to call the people with the phone I saw, but it was the other man that could have survived, that I left that has the phone, it was his people that came and rescue me.
“The tipper was coming from Ughelli to Bayelsa while the car was coming from Ughelli to Uwherun, both were coming on the same lane. The second side of the road was blocked and they were using one lane, maybe he wanted to overtake the tipper but when he saw another car coming, he now hit the front tire of the tipper.”
Confirming the death of the accident to newsmen, the Ughelli Unit Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Ikechukwu Okwo said three persons died while one was injured.
He said, “this afternoon, we received a distress call about a crash along Ughelli/Patani road and then we dispatch a team of our rescue officers and marshalls to carry out the rescue and then along the line we discovered that three people were confirmed dead.
“The three persons were carried to General Hospital where the doctor confirm them dead. One of the victims was rescued alive and then taken to the hospital. So at the end, we have three dead and one injured.
“We do timely rescue, within ten minutes we were there, even when one was trapped, we made all effort to bring him out.”
Speaking further, Okwo attributed the accident to speed, pointing out that speed violation was one of the common cause of accidents.
He advised commuters to use common sense and maintain speed limits when plying the roads, especially during this festive period when there will be many vehicular movements on the roads, adding that transporters must also avoid overload when using the roads.
The corpses have been deposited in Ughelli Central Hospital mortuary as at the time of filing this report.
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