The accident fire truck
Eight firefighters have been injured after a fire engine came off the road on the way to attend to a fire outbreak and crashed into a storey building at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.
The fire crews were rushing to the scene of a fire incident at Kyekyewere, a community near Obuasi, at about 2:00pm on Sunday when the accident happened around the Len Clay Stadium junction.
Ashanti Regional Fire Service Commander, ACFO Henry Giwah said all the eight firefighters were taken to the AGA and Obuasi Government Hospitals in the municipality with varying degrees of injuries.
“Thank God, they are all responding to treatment. Currently, at least two have been discharged, and so the six are still on admission,” he stated.
Narrating the incident, ACFO Giwah said, “There was a call for an emergency, and they were proceeding. From the driver’s point of view or the address, it is a straight route and he was going with speed.”
According to the fire commander, unknown to the driver that the road had been blocked for construction, he drove at top speed in that direction, and upon realising that there was an open pit ahead, abruptly changed course and the fire engine tumbled in the process, crashing into a nearby building.
ACFO Giwah indicated that there were no signs to provide indications of the construction of the road, and blamed the accident on the contractor, intimating that the fire tender is the only one serving Obuasi Municipal, Akrofuom and Obuasi East districts as well as their adjoining communities.
“I’m worried because the fire tender with the registration Number FS 548 is damaged beyond repair. We need a replacement as soon as possible. It needs to be sold as scrap; there’s nothing the tender can be used for,” Mr. Giwah pinned.
Eyewitnesses said two of the crew had to be freed from the wreckage by bystanders who carried them into a waiting ambulance.
One of them, Kofi Opoku, said the driver and other crew members suffered dislocation of arms and legs as a result of the accident, before they were taken to hospital.
By Ernest Kofi Adu