Family wrecked by tragedies at same accident black spot
Ms Jane Wambui Kiriga, whose leg was amputated after she was run over by a vehicle.
What you need to know:
- On December 24, 2020, as Mary Wanjiku and Nancy Waithera, took their mother back to hospital for a check-up, the three were involved in a road accident.
- A vehicle rammed their car and Ms Wanjiku suffered multiple fractures.
Like an ill-lit, haunted castle in a horror movie, the Kinale stretch on the Naivasha-Nairobi highway has wrought untold pain on the family of Ms Jane Wambui Kiriga.
The 65-year-old woman from Kageraini village in Nyandarua County has endured a series of tragic events, all of which uncannily occurred at the same spot on the Naivasha-Nairobi highway.
On May 12, 2017, as Ms Kiriga disembarked from a vehicle in Kinale, she slipped and was run over by the same vehicle she had got off. She was so badly injured that doctors said the only way her life could be saved was to have her leg amputated.
“I was devastated… I had a few moments earlier left home fit as a fiddle to run my usual errands, only to lose my leg a few hours later,” she told the Nation.
Ms Kiriga, who previously earned a living as a grocer, could no longer fend for herself. She now had to depend on family members for her upkeep and that of her husband.
“My family helped me cope with the emotional turmoil that I was undergoing as I recovered.”
Hardly had she fully recovered than tragedy struck again.
Speeding motorist
In February 2018, Ms Kiriga’s husband, who had joined his friends to enjoy the evening breeze along the highway, was knocked down and killed by a speeding motorist.
Bizarrely, the driver lost control of the vehicle and killed Ms Kiriga’s husband at the same spot she had lost her leg.
“It was a painful moment for us and, as a family, we decided to relocate to Kinangop, where I had acquired a parcel of land,” said Ms Kiriga. They settled in their new home and for two years encountered no ugly incident. It, however, turned out to have been the proverbial lull before a storm.
“In December 2020, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was in shock, almost slipping into depression. Why me?” she posed, tears welling in her eyes.
Ms Kiriga was treated at the Kijabe Mission Hospital and had her breast removed. She then went back home to recuperate under the care of her two daughters, hoping things would go back to normal. That was, however, not to be.
Road accident
On December 24, 2020, as Mary Wanjiku and Nancy Waithera, took their mother back to hospital for a check-up, the three were involved in a road accident.
As fate would have it, the incident occurred at the turn towards Kijabe hospital, less than one kilometre from where Ms Kiriga lost her leg and her husband breathed his last.
A vehicle rammed their car and Ms Wanjiku suffered multiple fractures. She was rushed to Kijabe Mission Hospital for treatment. Ms Waithera sustained neck injuries.
Luckily, their mother emerged from the accident scene unscathed. The three, however, oddly found themselves seeking treatment at the same health facility, with the two who had moments earlier been hale and hearty now in worse condition than their mother, whom they had brought to hospital.
With her two daughters — her only source of hope — bed-ridden, she has no one to turn to.
The two, according to Ms Kiriga, require more than Sh2 million for treatment, which the family cannot raise, having spent up to the last penny on their mother’s medical care.
