by crossriverwatch admin
Four men, one after the other plunged into a deep well and drowned while trying to extricate a bucket from the well after the string with which it was tied was cut off leaving the bucket to sink to the bottom of the well.
The incident which happened on Wednesday morning along Ogoja Road, Ikom in the Central Senatorial District of Cross River State attracted a throng of sympathizers and onlookers with many attributing the tragedy to the work of the devil.
John Ushie, the first person to drown, a source in the beleaguered compound who gave her name as Janet told CrossRiverWatch, was getting ready for work and wanted to take his bath and decided to fetch water from the well in the compound but while he was fetching the water the string with which the bucket was tied gave way and he decided to retrieve it by jumping into the well but ended up gulping excess water in the well and eventually got drowned.
His brother, Boniface who had already gone to his shop at the Ikom Main Market was alerted on phone of what had happened and he rushed down on a bike (okada) and also jumped into the well to rescue his brother but also got downed in the process. “When Boniface could not come out, another neighbor also jumped in to see if he could rescue the two brothers inside the well and he too also got stuck in the well.”
According to Janet, when the landlord of the compound, Eyung Ebam saw what had happened, he too jumped in to the well and he too also got drowned. “It was at this point that nobody was willing to get into the well again and the National Drug Law Enforcement, NDLEA, officials who were mounting a road block close to the house called the Fire Service and they arrived soon”.
She said when the Fire Service men arrived, one of them jumped into the well with a rope with which he tied the landlord who was the last person to drown in order to pull him out. “He tied the man the rope around his chests region and gradually his colleagues dragged him out but when he got close to the point they wanted to grab him and pull him out, the rope slipped and he went down again hitting the others inside which may have eventually killed everyone”.
The four bodies were eventually pulled out by the Fire Service men and taken to the County Hospital, at Ikom Four Corners but were confirmed dead by Dr. Ukwam, the medical doctor there.
An official of the Cross River State Fire Service Station Ikom, Mr. Linus Ework said he got a distress call at about 7am and he and his men rushed to the scene to rescue the victims but “It was unfortunate that it was a little too late as three of them were pulled out dead”.
When CrossRiverWatch visited No. 20 Ikom -Calabar Road, where the landlord, Mr. Ebam, an NOA trainer had his welding workshop before his demise, the place was deserted and the girls in the nearby drinking beer parlor only looked at our reporter without responding to any of his questions.
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