By Sunday Agbo Abakaliki
The Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Ebonyi, Mrs. Stella Uchegbu, has blamed villagers’ uncooperative attitude for the corps inability to rescue victims of a deadly auto crash along the Abakaliki-Enugu highway last week Friday.
Uchegbu, who noted that the villager’s unsympathetic attitude towards her officers foiled the rescue of the four dead victims which included Mr. Emmanuel Anaga, technical assistant to Governor David Umahi on Agriculture.
According to her, the corps was informed about the road carnage around 9.17pm and deployed its Zebra unit which is in charge of emergency rescue operations to the scene immediately.
She said, “We arrived at the scene by 9.30pm but the villagers prevented us from rescuing the four victims lying on the ground who we intended to convey to the hospital, alleging that we arrived late to the scene.
She noted that in her calculation, the time it took the corps to arrive the accident scene was not late considering emergency assessment as her officers still stayed at the scene which was a part of their training schedule.
“The villagers started hitting our ambulance with sticks and other dangerous weapons which made my officers return to base, as they could not confront a mob”, she stated.
She added that the villagers rather used their private vehicles to convey the accident victims to the hospital, saying that motorbikes were also used as escort which according to her indicated that the accident occurred earlier than when the information was received.
“People should realise that rescue operations involve life and death and should not allow their emotions overwhelm them in such critical situations as we renew calls for FRSC officials to bear arms.
The corps commander noted that zebra unit could had successfully dispersed the villagers if they were arms, as the armed they intended to use was for defensive purposes instead of offensive purposes.
“We also discovered that most people don’t have access to our emergency response lines which could have been vital for instance, in a case such as the Friday incident and the emergency line is 122.
“The line is toll free, can used through any network provider for 24 hours and is domiciled with our headquarters in Abuja while the emergency number of our zebra unit is 09053976956”, she stated.