Woman falls into City trench

Staff Writer | Tuesday September 2, 2014 13:12

 

The woman said she was minding her own business, on the way to buying herself some medicine at a mall pharmacy when she suddenly realised her right leg, all the way to the hip, was stuck in some whole. “I did not quite understand it at first, but it dawned on me I had slipped through a hole into a trench,” she said soon after firefighters, assisted by members of the public pulled her from the trench.

Fright and pain had caused the woman to scream, when she suddenly found herself partly suspended between the trench and the solid slab through whose water access she had slipped into the trench.

“We found her screaming as we passed by, and called the fire brigade,” said a police officer at the scene.

Not quite prepared for the sort of rescue mission they were faced with, the firefighters who initially preferred to work alone found the pick, jaws-of -life and a spade that they brought along useless.

However they eventually agreed to try a suggestion by a member of the public who suggested they cut a terrace chain to pull out one of the concrete slabs.

Instead of cutting the chain, a firefighter brought a thick rescue rope. Together with several members of the public, they used the rope to pull out the slab adjoining the one into which the woman was trapped. That allowed the firefighters to slide the offending slab to the side and extricate the woman. An ambulance arrived and firefighters and paramedic slid the woman onto a spine board.  They took her to Princess Marina hospital where two hours later, she was still to be seen by a doctor. The woman who said she was from Mogobane, some 45 kilometres from Gaborone, had just arrived from Ramotswa where a doctor had removed her bad tooth. “ I have just removed a tooth. I am diabetic and was going to the pharmacy to buy some medicine,” she said as she waited to be seen by a doctor a Princess Marina Hospital.

People working near the area where the woman fell into the trench said the incident was not the first one.

Gaborone City Council offices were closed at the time Mmegi called to enquire about the safety of the trench covers. The council owns the trench and slab into which the woman fell.