ANOTHER CASUALTY IN TAKORADI ACCIDENT (1C, JAN 28, 2011)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

THE last of the children who were involved in the accident at Kwesimintsim in the Western Region which claimed five lives has died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital after weeks of efforts to save her life.
Eleven-year-old Melissa Donkor took her final breath yesterday after two weeks of fighting to stay alive.
She was said to have sustained a deep laceration and multiple fracture of her pelvic bone and could not make it after two weeks on admission at Korle-Bu.
The hope of her family that their child would rejoin them was dashed, as Melissa, whose brother and others died on the spot, while her sister and other schoolmates sustained various degrees of injury, passed on in the early hours of yesterday.
When she was on admission at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis, Melissa did not respond well to treatment but was said to have shown positive signs of recovery, for which reason she was airlifted to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for further treatment.
The team of doctors who had worked around the clock to ensure that she survived expressed regret that she could not pull through and consoled Melissa’s family for their loss.
The Western Regional Minister, Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, who had earlier visited the children in the hospital, was distressed by the news of the girl’s death.
He said he was about to hold a meeting with the school authorities when the news of Melissa’s death came to him.
He expressed his deepest condolence to the family of the deceased and the other bereaved families, saying, “It was my hope and prayer that Little Melissa would get well and rejoin her family and the nation but she sadly passed on.”
The accident in question, which happened two weeks ago, had the driver of an articulated truck run over and kill four schoolchildren and a woman at a zebra crossing at Kwesimintsim.
The driver then bolted, but he later surrendered to the Kumasi Police before he was transferred to Takoradi.
Meanwhile, the driver is still in custody and will reappear in court on February 2, 2011.