Accidents and Emergency Response

16^th June 2014: It was a beautiful morning and I was travelling to Lagos from Ile-Ife in a cab when I met an accident along Lagos-Ibadan expressway. On getting close to Sagamu, I realized that cars were heading back and I wondered what was going on. Not long after, I saw this thick smoke afar off and I knew immediately that it must have been an accident involving a fuel tanker. I was right; the accident involved a diesel tanker and a commercial bus. The cab I was in together with other vehicles had to keep some distance because the fire seemed to be spreading and no one could make it past the accident scene. So we had to park our vehicles and wait for the fire to self-extinguish. It was unfortunate that some lives were lost, may their souls rest in peace.

Smoke from an accident scene

While waiting, several questions ran across my mind such as: 

• Where are the emergency response services?
• Do we have the facilities to put out this large amount of fire in Nigeria?
• What could have been the cause of this accident? Was it as a result of bad road, reckless driving or mechanical fault?
• Could this accident have been prevented?

 I may not be able to answer all these questions but one thing I have noticed is that when accidents occur in Nigeria, most people don’t know the emergency hotlines to call…..they only know how to take pictures of the scene. Therefore, I decided to put up a few emergency contacts that I am aware of below.

AGENCY	EMERGENCY NUMBER	TWITTER	FACEBOOK
NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency)	112	@nemanigeria	nemanigeria
FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corps)	122	@FRSCNigeria	FRSCNigeria

A list of Lagos state fire stations can be found here. 
Also, according to the Nigerian Tribune, the federal government is intensifying efforts in building 227 fire stations around the country. 

So if we decide to take pictures of accident scenes, the least we can do is to call or tweet the emergency response services. You never can tell, you might just be saving a life. 

P.S. If you know of any other emergency numbers, please feel free to add them in the comment section. This is supposed to be a Wednesday post, my apologies but hey better late than never *winks*.