By Abubakar Yakubu, Abuja
To many of his colleagues, 78-year-old security guard, William Darkroom is being seen as the proverbial cat with nine lives.
They cannot imagine how he managed to escape death when a large chunk of gas cylinder from an exploded truck swept him off his feet and made him crash into some iron children’s playthings on Wednesday evening.
He had had a short nap the previous night and woken up early on Wednesday without any premonition of what laid in wait for him later in the evening of that day.
The father of eight children from two wives began the day by praying to God to give him long life. And it seems the prayer turned out to be his saving grace when he sat at his duty post at 7:07 that night. That was when he heard explosions that occurred when a truck installed with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) had a brake failure and crashed into some vehicles in the Federal Capital Territory. The vehicle was stopped by a passenger truck carrying workers very close to Karu Bridge.
The crash caused about six explosions before fire began to engulf vehicles that were trapped in the traffic jam caused by the accident.
According to Darkroom, immediately he heard the sound of the explosion, he got up from the chair in order to flee to safety. He said he expressed surprise when something swept him off his feet and he crashed into the children’s playthings that his employer was manufacturing for sale.
Our reporter, who visited the scene of the incident, learnt that a large chunk of metal from the truck’s CNG cylinder flew across the fence of the premises where Darkroom was guarding and swept him off his feet.
Darkroom said while under the iron plaything, the second security man in the premises rushed to his rescue and pulled him out. He said the incident left him with severe pain on his right side, especially on his leg.
“My body and head is paining me and I do not have any money to go to the hospital,” he lamented.
The second security man in the premises, Sunday Yakmodi, said immediately he heard the explosions, he dashed towards his colleagues direction. That was when he heard Darkroom’s wails. Yakmodi then pulled him out of the iron children’s playthings that fell on him.
He said Darkroom was in serious pains when he rescued him and he had to use hot water to massage his body and leg in the night.
“I am happy he is able to walk with the leg today,” Yakmodi said.
He further disclosed that when he went around the premises to assess damages done to facilities, he discovered about four corpses lying outside the premises.
Michael Chukwu, a witness who works opposite the accident scene, said he overheard passengers in the burning Sienna and Coaster vehicles crying for help but nobody could rescue them due to the wide fire that engulfed the area after the explosions.
He said one of the motorists had to jump out of his vehicle with a burning shirt and he saw him running and shouting for assistance.
Chukwu revealed that people kept their distance out of fear while the fire raged. He lamented that about 30 persons might have lost their lives in the incident.
Another witness, Angel Idara, disputed the six causality figures given by the police and urged the Saturday Sun reporter to visit the Mortuary section of Karu General Hospital.
“When we got there this morning, I counted about 30 corpses and even watched when some families came to evacuate two bodies,” she disclosed.
Another witness said when the fire was put out; ambulances evacuated the corpses in batches to various hospitals in the FCT.
When our reporter visited Karu General Hospital’s Mortuary, he saw three covered burnt corpses and about six other ones lying on the ground in the open.
Some families who came to retrieve bodies for burial had to go for body bags due to the stench emitting from the bodies.
One of the attendants who spoke to Saturday Sun said eight corpses were brought from the accident scene and they are being taken care off in the mortuary section.
Reacting to the incident, the FCT Police Command disclosed that six persons died, while 14 vehicles were burnt after the explosion of a truck near Karu Bridge, along the Abuja-Keffi Expressway on Wednesday evening.
In a signed statement, the FCT Police spokesperson, Superintendent Josephine Adeh put the time of the incident at 6:58 pm and stated that the incident involved a Dangote trailer loaded with cement, adding that it lost control and crashed into stationary vehicles trapped in traffic, while approaching Nyanya Bridge from AYA.
She disclosed further that the impact engulfed 14 vehicles and said six victims were pulled from the wreckage and rushed to the hospital, but were confirmed dead by medical personnel on duty.
Meanwhile President Bola Tinubu has ordered a probe into the incident and has also directed that priority treatment be given to victims of the Abuja truck explosion.