In Road Accidents
on A Serendipitous Journey (Kenya), 19/Feb/2010 14:13, 34 days ago
In road accidents, personal injury isn’t your only worry. If you are dead or injured, it’s also a very real possibility that someone may come to rob you before someone comes to your help.The Daily Nation earlier this month reported on a road accident in which 6 people were killed.“Six people died and 14 others were seriously injured in a road accident …in Kirinyaga South District… The dead were passengers on the matatu which had 14 people on board. … Youths rushed to the scene, robbed the dead and disappeared before the police arrived. “They emptied the pockets ofthe dead and took off into the bush,” said one of the witnesses.”This isn’t a unique circumstance, in fact, it’s quite common.- A fellow volunteer when she first arrived in late 2009, saw a man be hit by the car and her matatu driver stopped, not to help but so the conductor could jump out and take the man’s mobile phone which was flung from his body on impact. This could have been key to identifying him and contacting his loved ones.- In December 2009, my Kenyan friend told me of a client of hers who was killed on Ngong Rd. trying to cross the street and was also robbed of everything on her person, making it difficult for the authorities to find and notify her next of kin.- I’ve seen a couple of people who have been killed by vehicles and both times there was a large crowd around the body, however I didn’t see anyone administering first aid. I wondered if these people were praying, but realized they may also be there to protect the body.In Kenya, there are heroes everywhere, but unfortunately there are a lot of ill-intentioned, desperate people as well.