by crossriverwatch admin
Search parties mounted by the family and friends to fish out the body of Mr Friday Sampson, a director with the Department of Works in the University of Calabar who was swept away by rampaging flood waters on Monday evening have failed to yield any result after four days of frantic search.
Patience Sampson, the first daughter of the man said her father who drove during the torrential down pour to the UJ Esuene Sports Stadium from his residence at No. 3 Akpandem Lane, off Unical Satellite Town where he picked his wife, Uduak Sampson who came back from Uyo mistakenly stepped into a gutter along IBB Way and was carried away by flood waters.
“He was coming back from the stadium where he went to pick our mother who came back from Uyo and along IBB Way, there was a hold up and my father blared and blared his horn but the car in front did not move so he stepped out to find out what was going on and mistakenly stepped into the gutter and was carried away”.
She said her mother and Ime, the 18 year old brother who accompanied the father to the stadium to pick the mother were in the car and because of the intensity of the down pour could not do anything to rescue their father. “The rain was falling very heavily and the flood was rapid so my mother and younger brother could not do anything to rescue him while he was being carried away by the flood”.
Patience said the men of the Cross River State Fire Service were contacted to help fish out the man that night but all efforts that night, throughout Tuesday and Wednesday morning have not yielded any result.
“We have searched all the big gutters and forests and now we are at the CRUTCEH river and hopefully we might locate him here” she said.
The family members and his friends both in Calabar and Etim Ekpo, his hometown in Akwa Ibom State have been wailing profusely and yet the man’s body has not been located.
“We have been crying since Monday night and our throats and eyes are aching us; we hope our father would be found”. The distraught girl said weeping.
Mr Eyo, the Information Officer with the University of Calabar said the matter has not been officially reported to the school “but I have heard that somebody like that died”.
The Cross River Police spokesman, DSP John Umoh said he was yet to be briefed on the matter.
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