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A motorist and a man with disabilities are battling for their lives at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and another is reported to have escaped with minor injuries after a near-fatal road accident at Clock Tower in Blantyre on Wednesday morning.
Sub-Inspector John Namalenga of the Police Public Relations Office confirmed the accident but could not give further details of the casualties, saying they had not yet been identified by yesterday afternoon.
Eyewitnesses, including trembling Blantyre City Assembly workers who the vehicle, a metallic brown Pajero, missed by a lion’s whisker as they were tending to flowers at the Clock Tower, said it was a miracle that no-one died in the accident.
“I have never seen anything like that before. It was like watching a James Bond movie,” recounted a shaken city assembly worker donning orange overalls.
“We heard a crash and then a loud sound of screeching metal and in a split second we saw the car speeding towards us after missing the road. We just had enough time to get out of its way and then we saw it flying over the road from Wenela before crushing into Mudi River.”
Another eyewitness said he saw the vehicle registration number CK 1933 speeding down Glyn Jones Road towards the roundabout. He added that the driver must have lost control and the car veered off onto the pedestrians lane on the left side.
“ Next it hit a man riding a wheelchair and dragged the mangled piece over 20 metres down the road before it took off and plunged into the Mudi,” said the eye witness.
Other accounts of eyewitnesses suggested that the driver must have suffered a fit and must have swooned as a result and therefore could neither control the steering wheel nor put his foot off the gas pedal.
The driver, whose name was not immediately known, suffered serious head injuries and other fractures in the lower limbs after the car crashed into a sewer pillar in the middle of the effluent-infested river.
Bystanders rushed to his rescue and pulled him from the badly mangled Pajero in a semi-conscious state with a lot of blood oozing from his forehead, while others picked up the wheelchair rider whom they took for dead.
The hospital’s casualty officer Frank Chilingulo confirmed receiving at least three casualties, saying two were rushed to the theatre and could not give further details.
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