Twenty students injured in Mabira accident

By Mukasa Kivumbi and Pascal Kwesiga

Over 20 students have been seriously injured in an accident in Mabira on Kampala-Jinja highway.

The police said that S.4 candidates of St Lawrence SS in Sonde who were travelling back from a field trip,  sustained severe injuries when the bus they were travelling in overturned at Buwoola in Mabira forest at around 4:00Pm.

The victims, who had successfully finished their field trip at Kasaku tea estate and Njeru farm in Njeru town, were rushed to Kawoolo hospital in private vehicles of individuals who were travelling on the road at the time the accident happened.

They were later joined by the Lugazi police in transporting the students who were crying in pain to the hospital.

By press time some of the victims were being transferred from Kawoolo hospital to Mulago hospital as the few health workers who were at the hospital had been overwhelmed by the emergency cases.

The health workers struggled to attend to the students as they wailed in pain in the theater and hospital corridors since the facility was already full with patients.

Some of the victims who spoke to New Vision at the hospital said the accident happened when the driver of their school bus registration number UAQ 940G they were travelling in tried to overtake stationary vehicles that had been stopped as the police removed a trailer that had an accident on Thursday night on the same spot.

At the scene of the accident, the road was narrow and slippery as a result of motor oil that spilled all over when the trailer that was carrying it overturned.

The victims said that as the driver tried to overtake vehicles on a narrow spot he saw on oncoming vehicle and veered off the road to avoid a head on collusion with it before the vehicle crushed on the right side of the road and overturned.

The officer in charge of traffic for Lugazi police station, Alex Mulamuzi said the driver of the students who fled after the accident was overtaking stationery vehicles that had been stopped as the police removed the trailer on the road.

“We don’t know why he could not stop yet we had stopped all vehicles. He refused to join the line and I don’t know what caused the accident later but we are going to find out,” he said.

The number of students who were in the vehicle could not be readily established.

I have only seen 23 students in the hospital who have serious and minor injuries. I think the rest of the students went hope after the accident and I can’t tell the number of those who were in the bus,” Mulamuzi said.