Debra Chelangat (centre) with her parents - Ms Magdalene Kitur (left) and Mr Felix Kitur (right) during the interview on July 10, 2024, at their home in Chesoton village, Sotik constituency of Bomet county. She survived an accident in Ratilit area on the Narok-Bomet highway where 12 people died.
An overloaded matatu, a tyre burst, splattered blood, dead bodies, and dismembered human parts in the blink of an eye best describes the scene of an accident that claimed 12 lives in Ratilit area along the Narok-Bomet highway.
"I survived the horrific incident that occurred on June 29, 2024, by the grace of God,” said Ms Debra Chelangat, a jobless 24-year-old Zetech University Hospitality and Tourism graduate.
Chelangat said it was the first time in her life she saw so much blood, dead bodies and body parts and for several minutes, she thought she was emerging from a bad dream.
“I lay between dead bodies, pushed through, dismembered body parts, and blood oozing from the injured and those whose lives were snapped off. I was saved from the jaws of death and I do not take it for granted” Chelangat said.
On the material day, she was travelling from Nairobi to her home in Chesoton village, Manaret location, Sotik constituency, Bomet county for the funeral of her uncle Kennedy Kitur, who succumbed to cancer.
She paid Sh1,200 at Nairobi’s Nyamakima stage to Kaplong in Bomet county, but what was said to be a Kisii-bound matatu that she boarded, was unbeknown to her and other passengers, terminating the journey in Narok town.
On arrival in Narok’s main stage, the matatu crew disappeared for 30 minutes leaving passengers in the vehicle and re-emerging and transferring them to another vehicle.
“We were transferred three times in Narok to other vehicles before the eventual take off by the ill-fated vehicle that stopped so many times on the way to pick up additional passengers that I lost count of,” Ms Chelangat said.
“Once the car was overloaded somewhere past Ololulunga, we travelled for about 20 minutes, then there was a tyre burst. It was a loud bang, but the driver sought to allay fears of the passengers saying he was in control.”
“However, he lost control of the vehicle which repeatedly rolled. Things happened so fast, it was like a dream, a reel out of a horror movie. But I realised it was real and I thought I was going to die,” Ms Chelangat said.
Within seconds, perhaps minutes, as she has no proper recollection thereafter, Chelangat and her fellow passengers lay in the wreckage fighting for their lives, others having breathed their last.
From impact, nine bodies were strewn on the tarmac and by the roadside, and others were trapped in the wreckage of the vehicle that was reduced to a shell.
Medics at the Longisa Referral Hospital in Bomet attend to a survivor of the June 29, Saturday night accident that claimed twelve lives.
She sustained a spinal injury, and leg and hand fractures as a result of the accident that has confined her to a bed for the last month
“In the confusion that ensued, I heard the rescuers saying there was one who could still be alive in the mangled wreckage. I raised my right hand as that was the only limb I could move. It drew the attention of the rescuers,” Chelangat said.
'Unforgettable'
What she remembers of that moment etched in her memory, is telling the rescuers not to shine light on her eyes in the darkness. She was unaware that she had sustained an eye injury, a fact she discovered later in hospital. The bloodshot eyes are still sensitive to light.
“The rescuers pulled me through the shattered window, the only opening and exit I could see in the blurred scene. I breathed the fresh air gushing in and realised that indeed I was alive in the midst of the death,” Chelangat stated.
She gave out her mobile PIN to one of the rescuers before she passed out, who in turn called her parents informing them of the tragic accident, triggering a series of events that led her relatives to rush to Narok from Bomet to check on her condition.
When the family transferred her from Narok to Tenwek, she was in a coma and she came to, about 26 hours later.
“When I woke up, the first thing I saw was an intravenous drip and it took two days to realise the import of the injuries I sustained. I could not move my limbs, could not sit as the most piercing pain was in my back. I learnt later that I had a spinal injury,” Chelangat said in an interview while recuperating at her home.
Also Read: Revealed: The doomed ride on matatu that killed 11
Chelangat sustained a fracture of the thoracic vertebra, the shaft of the femur and the shaft of the humerus according to medical reports at the hospital.
“I pray that I will be able to fully recover so that I can look for a job and assist my family that is looking up to me and at least change their social status and that of my siblings,” Chelangat said.
She said that she feels a lot of pain and spends all day in her bed and has to be assisted to get out, including to answer
“She sustained left humerus fracture, left femur fracture, and T6 flexion-distraction fracture,” Dr Carolyne Stickney, an orthopaedic surgeon at Tenwek Hospital said in the discharge notes.
Chelangat has been earning a living in Nairobi through casual engagements in the hospitality industry. She can not fend for herself now as a result of the accident and is under the care of her parents.
Mr Felix Kitur, Debra’s father, said they learnt of the accident a short while after it occurred through a phone call from one of the rescuers who used the girl’s mobile phone.
“We abandoned the funeral arrangements and rushed to the accident scene about 80 kilometres away from home and found the victims had been rushed to Ololulunga hospital,” Mr Kitur said in an interview.
“At the hospital, we found that two victims had succumbed at the facility and our daughter had been transferred to Narok County referral hospital. In Narok, we requested the hospital to transfer her to Tenwek Hospital in Bomet County, which was granted,” Mr Kitur said.
He said “It was the beginning of a journey that has dug a Sh400,000 hole in our finances, money of which we do not have. We are appealing to all well-wishers to come to our rescue”
Ms Magdalene Kitur, the victims’ mother said the family could not afford to pay the hospital bill and is requesting support from well-wishers.
“We are grateful to God for the survival of our daughter from the horrific accident. Unfortunately, we are unable to cope with the rising bills for her treatment due to the humble background we come from and the fact that she is jobless and recently graduated from college,” Magdalene said.
Mr John Kitur, the uncle of the victim said the family had gone through a lot emotionally and financially in the past few weeks that has weighed them down.
“The family requires support from the community and all well-wishers. They cannot raise the required medical bill,” Mr Kitur said.
A series of follow-up treatments are scheduled for the college graduate who is praying to pull through and fully recover from the accident.
Police hold the position that the matatu was overloaded at the time of the accident which claimed nine lives on the spot and three others in hospital. It is claimed that some of the passengers could not be traced after the accident.
