…How man was confirmed dead after an accident, sent to mortuary but rose after 3 months
By Cosmas Omegoh
Mr Akila Daniel was declared dead some years ago following a motorbike accident until after three months.
Then miraculously after the period, he came back from the brink and returned to life, after passing through “the valley of the shadow of death.”
Years after, he was involved in another ghastly accident which claimed the lives of 21 other persons. Only him survived the tragedy.
Today, Daniel, a father of three, is alive, and happy, bubbling with life.
The story of Daniel’s travail is more strange than fiction. But the reality is that his is a true life experience resonating with suspense, tenacity, diligence, faith in God and humanity.
Daniel, 40, hails from the Ichen-Junkun tribe in Kurmi local council of Taraba State.
He recalled how a little long ago, he was involved in a deadly motorcycle accident and died.
He recalled how some persons, including medical doctors that attended to him, concluded that his life had come to a screeching halt. But they were wrong.
Daniel was hauled into the mortuary where he rested among dead bodies for 24 hours.
But he staged an unbelievably comeback, a feat that took him three straight months to fully do so.
At a time Daniel was brought out from the mortuary, his body was now left on a hospital bed. He dwelt among the living for three months, and didn’t know where he really was. Perhaps he was in the void – a world a long way away from the present.
Everything about Daniel’s odyssey was not unknown; even him could not tell anything about himself. All everyone knows is that it bears clear marks of the divine. By listening to him, one grabs this vivid impression that providence had elected him to live.
How Daniels’ death journey began
Daniel, a Christian, worships with Christian Reformed Church of Nigeria (CRCN) in Wukari, Taraba State.
He currently doubles as a Peace Officer for the church and a journalist working on the church’s magazine.
In the morning of September 19, 2008, according to him, he woke up healthy, happy and chatty just like most men in his community.
As usual, he looked forward to living the day like every other. And so with great zeal, he went about his tasks, hoping to retire as usual at night fall, never knowing what was up against him.
Daniel never knew he would spend the hours to follow in the hospital mortuary among the dead.
He never envisaged that over the course of three months, he would never open his eyes to see the beauty of the sun’s rays.
As it approached 1:30p.m on that fateful day, thoughts of getting some cash from the bank for his family flooded his mind. Obeying his instinct, minutes later, he mounted his motorbike and off he sped, headed for the bank.
His words: “As I was cruising down the road, I got somewhere opposite Wukari Police Station, where there used to be failed portion. Then I saw one of my closest friends, Bitrus, sitting out at a shop nearby. As I waved at him, I tried to dodge a bad portion of the road. While doing that, I swerved to the left hoping for a quick get-way from a motorcycle coming in the opposite direction.
“I noticed that the motorcycle was speeding, but I was clear in my judgment that I would navigate away from the spot before we met. But I was wrong.
“It was as if the rider doubled his speed. Everything happened too quickly, and both of us collided. That was all I could remember.”
Daniel said the rest of what he learnt went down was told to him months after he had recovered.
While he lay dead, his co-victim too passed out, both leaving their motorcycles in ruins.
He said passersby and his friend, Bitrus, who witnessed the tragedy quickly sprang to their rescue. Both of them had presumably passed on. But sympathisers still had to rush them to Wukari General Hospital to see if anything could be done.
Daniel said shortly after taking him to the hospital, his badly traumatised friend, trudged to his home to break the news of the tragic incident. Expectedly, the neigbourhood erupted with cries of pains and anguish.
Daniel disclosed that he was told that on arrival at the hospital, the first doctor who encountered him checked his pulse and his breathing and concluded that he was brought in dead.
He said: “Next, I was wheeled into an embalmment room.
“While there, I was told fortunately or unfortunately, the hospital at that moment had no embalmment chemicals. So, they sent for some from Jos.
“More importantly, I was told that at a point, the doctor who was to perform the procedure noticed that my body was still warm. But I was bleeding from the mouth, ear, nose and eyes. When he checked my pulse again and again, everything was still poor. So, he closed for the day, passing me over to a mortician.
“The next moment, the mortician hauled my body unto pills of bodies out there. Case closed!
“Next day when the hospital had received the chemicals, another doctor came in to embalm my body. I was told that just like his colleague did, he observed that my body was a bit warm; but there was no pulse.
“About that time, I was told that my body had neither begun to swell up nor stiffen. So, the doctors was perplexed. He checked again and again and reasoned he couldn’t continue. So, he too abandoned my body and left.
“Later at about 2:00p.m on the same day, I was told that a third doctor came in to perform the procedure; he checked my vitals and discovered that I was a bit warm. My pulse was still poor. Till that hour, my body had neither swollen up nor become stiff. So, he took particular interest in what was going on.
“I was told that he later beckoned on his colleagues to come and unravel the emerging spectacle he believed was strange in medicine.
“After a back and forth, they concluded that my body should be taken to the ward for some more observation, still unsure of what to do with it. So, they removed the cotton wool in my nostril, mouth, and ears.”
Daniel in the ward
Daniel told Sunday Sun that when he was wheeled into the ward, he was kept at a separate corner covered with bed spread. The same doctor who insisted there must be life still left in him kept weaving in and out to see how things were unfolding. He wanted to observe new developments. And indeed there were.
“Now, convinced that I was still alive, he cleaned me up, as he continued to figure out what to do next,” Daniel said.
According to him, at some point, an idea occurred to the doctor – something strange.
“He asked for infusion fluid and proceeded to see if that could help. And that became the game changer.
“When he eventually hit my nerve, he was shocked to see that the fluid had started dropping straight into my system. ‘Hurray, he is alive,’ he screamed alongside every other one present. Yet, there was no other sign to suggest that I was still alive.”
He further said the same doctor suggested that his pastor should be invited immediately to pray over him. There and then, Rev. Polycarp Yohanna, in charge of CRCN LCC Wapan-Nghaku in Wukari where Daniel worshiped, was invited.
“On arrival, I was told my pastor prayed like he had never done before. Then I started to breathe, but very slowly, I was told.”
Daniel said he was told that although he had begun to breath, he neither ate anything nor opened his eyes.
“I was in that vegetative state just living on infusion for three months even before I could open my eyes for the first time,” he said.
He recalled that “there were acclamations of joy the first day I opened my eyes. It was at that hour that I regained consciousnesses and demand food. I was extremely hungry. Then I started to ask where was.”
But even when Daniel was very hungry, he could not eat anything.
“It was at that time that it was discovered that I had a broken jaw,” he recalled. “So the hospital started giving me liquid food always passed through a pipe just to sustain me.
“Then the broken jaw was stitched. It took extra two months for the wound to heal bringing my stay in General Hospital Wukari to five months,” he said, his voice ringing with an admixture of pain and gratitude.
But while Daniel was languishing on hospital bed unaware of where he was, did he feel he was living somewhere out of this world?
He said: “I didn’t feel I was living anywhere else. I simply lay there not knowing where I was. My eyes were shut. I didn’t see any one let alone know what was going on around me.”
Daniel after leaving hospital
Daniel said when he was eventually discharged, there was barely no difference between him and a human skeleton.
“From a mile away you could count my ribs,” he said, adding “they all jagged out looking visible.”
He said he understood he real state the day his elder sister who was serving in Kaduna State that year as a corps member arrived at their home and could not recognise him.
“When she arrived, she saw me and was still asking me ‘where is Akila, where is Akila?’ That was when it dawned on me that I had truly been through hell. Imagine that my blood sister could not recognise me.”
Close to 20 years after, he expressed eternal gratitude to the doctor that saved him, stating that without him and providence, he could have eventually died during the embalmment procedure.
“Even many weeks after I was discharged, the doctor kept coming to the house to check on me.
“I could not thank him enough,” he said.
Despite what happened to him, Daniel remains exceedingly grateful and faithful to God.
“Soon after I was discharged, I went for thanksgiving in my church, just to tell Him I was grateful He rescued me,” he said.
How the accident affected him
All the while Daniel spoke, his voice rang with nostalgia, speaking as though the incident happened yesterday.
“Till this moment, I still live with some permanent damage to my chin and sense of smell.
“For instance, right now, an unpleasant smell to others can be pleasant to me, while what is pleasant to other is easily unpleasant to me.
“Even now, I don’t have any form of feeling around my chin. If I touch it, I don’t feel pain whatsoever.
“That region is dead because of the number of injections that was given to me there in the course of mending my jaw bone.
“But overall, I remain grateful that the accident did not affect that part of my brain which controls reasoning.
“Doctors said if that had happened, of course, I would have long been mad,” he noted.
Anytime his wife, Chichi Daniel, recalls her husband’s ordeal, she is full of thanks and gratitude.
You are mistaken to think Chichi is Igbo. She is a Junkun woman whose name translates to Mercy. She hangs on to the tread that her husband’s miraculous survival is a clear testament of God’s mercy.
Spiritual twist to Daniel’s ordeal
Daniel said after his recovery, he kept wondering how the accident that nearly claimed his life ever happened.
He said he had sometimes reasoned if there wasn’t more to it until his fears were confirmed one day.
“One day, a man approached me and pleaded for forgiveness, confessing that he was behind my travail.
“As I listened to him, he admitted that he was compelled to come to me to seek for forgiveness because he had long been troubled.
“He admitted he was responsible for the accident. That the very hour the incident happened, he was present. That he confirmed me dead before he left rejoicing. That how I managed to live defiled him.
“He said apart from coming to me to seek for forgiveness, he wanted to encourage me to hold tightly to the God I worship; He is indeed a true God. Otherwise, he had counted my days over for good.”
But did Daniel forgive him? “Yes of course! That’s why we are Christians!”
A second fatal accident
Three years after Daniel came back from the brink, he was again involved in another fatal accident that claimed the lives of all the passengers. Only him survived.
“That one happened on March 3, 2011.
“On that very day, I was travelling on a Hummer bus from Wukari to Gashaka LGA also in Taraba State to pick up HIV/AIDS reports. There were 22 of us on board the bus. When the accident happened, I was the only one that struggled out of the wreckage of the bus without any scratch.”
Daniel said that those two ugly landmark in his life had long blocked his sense of fear.
“I no more fear anything or accident while travelling; I no more fear death.
“My experiences are enough testimony that God is with me at every step. So what else shall I fear?” he queried.