Accident victim’s wife appeals for help

The wife of a recent motorcycle accident victim in Monrovia, Madam Hellen Kerkula Johnson, is appealing to the Government of Liberia to take her husband abroad to seek proper medication.

The husband, Mr. Victor C. Johnson, was allegedly hit by a police vehicle marked RL 102, which is assigned to the Deputy Police Director for Operation at the Liberia National Police, Abraham Kromah.

The incident occurred on February 15, 2015 on Carey Street behind the Trinity Cathedral Church in Monrovia. According to the victim, he was riding onboard a commercial motorbike as a passenger when the RL 102 vehicle hit the bike, and broke his two legs.

Mr. Johnson further narrated that when the car wounded him, the deputy police chief, Abraham Kromah, recognized him, but did nothing.

But the police have refuted the claim in a press release. A release issued on February 16. 2015 by the Liberia National Police said Deputy Director Kromah was enroute to a function when the motorcyclist saw his (RL-102) vehicle and began to escape, apparently in fear.

“In the process of escaping, during the abrupt sight of Deputy Director of Police for Operations, the commercial motorcyclist in a panic mood, dropped the motorcycle unceremoniously, for fear of being arrested, which led to the passenger (Mr. Victor C. Johnson) falling off the motorcycle and sustaining leg injury”, the release from the LNP narrated.

It continued that following the incident, Director Kromah personally initiated the transportation and payment of the initial deposit to the hospital to treat the victim, adding, “Since the incident, Hon. Kromah continues to spend time with the victim and has underwritten the full medical cost.”

The release at the same time reminded that the restriction imposed on motorcyclists to not ply central Monrovia remains in place and called on pedestrians to avoid the use of commercial bikes on restricted streets and highways; concluded the release signed by Chief Superintendent Lewis Norman, Acting Chief of Press and Public Affairs.

But Madam Johnson lamented that her husband is in serious pain and unable to do anything. She said he was admitted at the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Sinkor, Monrovia on the same Sunday of the incident, February 15, 2015 and was subsequently discharged on Friday, February 20, 2015.
 
According to her, she appealed to hospital authorities to keep her husband on bed until he could adequately respond to treatment, they allegedly refused.

Speaking on LIB 24, a local FM radio station here Wednesday, Mrs Johnson continued that the Director of the Liberia National Police, Col. Chris Massaquoi, visited the hospital to see her husband once and instructed her to file an official complaint to the police, but since she did so there has been no redress.

She lamented that her husband needs to be flown out of the country because he is in a critical condition, and cries every time.  She said her husband was breadwinner for the family, but now he is ill, and she too is unable to sell her market because she has to take care of him.

According to her, Col. Abraham Kromah has shown no remorse for what happened, adding that though he visited the hospital twice when her husband was admitted there, but since the hospital discharged him and he went home, no one from the LNP has gone to see how he is doing.

She explained that her husband does not eat because he is afraid of going to the toilet as nobody is there to lift him and carry him in the bathroom so he drinks water only. Mrs. Hellen Johnson therefore appealed to the Government and people of Liberia to please assist her husband to seek medication abroad because his health condition critical.

By Ethel A. Tweh