It was not just a harrowing experience for the victims of the unfortunate drowning incident that happened at Apam on Sunday, March 7, it was also very traumatizing for some youth in the community who had to jump to the rescue of these young boys and girls.
According to some youth who spoke to GhanaWeb in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, it was an experience that was scary and sad.
They managed to save some 5 persons, but of this number, only 2 survived. So how did they do it?
Two of these young men who spoke to GhanaWeb’s Laud Harris Adu-Asare gave a vivid narration in this account.
They among other things recounted their struggle, how horrific the entire incident was and how it has, subsequently left very grave memories on their minds.
Kow and Kobby are both residents. Kobby joined the rescue team to save his 13-year-old nephew.
Kow's narration:
For Kow, it took determination to save the lives of these younger ones despite the wild tides.
“We gather here to play football on Sundays; it’s called Sunday Special. After playing football, we swim here.
“We were seated here and the boys were playing so I took my eyes off for a bit and realized they were far off into the sea. I called my friend to check out the situation and to tell him how far they were going so we could tell them to come back.
“At the time, we didn’t know they were drowning, we thought they had just drowned far off into the sea. So we took a rope which we play with, and swam with it, with the intention that we could get them to hold the rope and come to shore but we swam for long and couldn’t reach them and we started getting tired but we still went on.
“There’s a part of the sea where the waves turn round like a whirlwind and when anyone gets to that part, and you don’t know how to swim, it’s easy to die.
“We saw one such big wave ahead of us when we were going and it was twirling and so I suggested to my friend that we use another side, we passed that side and we saw the first survivor; my friend’s nephew. His nephew begged him to save him because he was tired,” he said.
“At that time, he (my friend was also tired) so he took him in his hands and then we both held a hand each and swam to shore, whilst some of our other friends managed to go and save some others.
“But we realized as we came that one of the children was very far from the shore, my friend was too tired and we knew the boy who was drowning would also be too tired by the time he gets there so he went for a wooden surfboard that someone was swimming with at the shore near us, left his nephew with me and swam deeper to save the one we had seen.
“When he got close he saw two, one boy and a girl, but the girl had already drowned by the time he got there, so he took the boy and allowed the waves to push them to the shore whilst he managed to swim, when he got close, we rushed and helped them to the shore.
“When we got there, we heard some others running to bring another girl who had floated onto the water but she was heavy so we had to take turns swimming with her till we got to the shore and then we managed to rush her to the hospital.
“In all we saw six but saved 5 excluding the girl who drowned but she had already drowned when we got there,” Ekow added.
Kobby’s narration:
For Kobby who had to witness the horrific incident involving his nephew, he is yet to get over the trauma, especially because he tried all he did, to save one girl when he went the second time to rescue another batch.
“Since it happened, I’ve been unable to sleep. I’ve lost appetite. I didn’t know my nephew was swimming on that day. The waves were rough, but if they were swimming at the shore, it could have been managed.
“Some of them had gone too far by the time we realized but the others we managed to save them but for the other girl who was struggling when I got there, I asked the boy where she was and he said the girl was holding on to his shorts. I put him on the board I was holding and waited for about 3 minutes to see if the girl will emerge but she didn’t.
“So I took the boy and managed to come here. It was later when we got to the shore that we saw her body float. They managed to take her to the hospital but on the way, whilst we were trying to save her, she died and I got scared that her blood may be on my head. My sister was the one who encouraged me and told me I tried my best to save her.
“This thing has never happened before, I have never seen anything like it before,” he said.
Adding, “Sundays de3 it’s a weekend, we only swim on Sundays. We’ve been swimming for very long, I had never seen anything like this, this has never happened.
“The last boy I took by the time I got there, the last boy was slippery, he was too tired, and he told me so I had to put him in the canoe and pull him to the shore.
The elders who were suggesting the teenagers were here having sex, it’s all a lie.”
