Two nurses who lost their lives as a result of the explosion at the GOIL petrol station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle last Wednesday have been identified as staff of the Ridge Hospital.

One other nurse, who is yet to be identified was a health assistant as her uni­form indicated.

The two identified Ridge Hospital nurses were Harriet and Emefa Agbematu.

They were caught in the inferno while taking shelter during a heavy downpour that same day on their way home from work.

Daily Guide's visit to the Ridge Hospital indicated that one of the victims, Emefa, was a midwife while the other one was doing her year of serv­ice and was supposed to finish on Monday.

Dr Obeng Apori, the Medical Director of the Hospital, who confirmed the incident, added that the third person was not the hospital's staff.

He said, "the second nurse was on rotation that evening and she was supposed to be at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)."

He said the hospital had lost com­mitted staff as one of the nurses who perished defied the rain to come to work only to meet her untimely death.

Nurses at the hospital were gathered at the mortuary where their deceased colleagues were kept.

Dr Apori disclosed that other victims of the explosion were at the hospital currently receiving treatment.

He said 21 bodies were initially admitted on the night of the unfortunate incident and the day after but 15 had been treated and discharged.

Six serious cases were still being treated when Daily Guide visited the health facility Monday morning.

Four were at the surgical ward while two were at the surgical emergency ward.

Dr Apori said the hospital was treating the patients for free.

Surviving victims stories

William Ofori Ansah, a worker at Bediako Brothers Pharmacy close to the accident scene, who had the upper part of his body burnt, said: "I was serving some people when I saw the road getting flooded so I told my boss we have to close because the flood was too much at the time we were preparing to leave. I saw the fire on the surface of the water; already we had smelt petrol scent and before long the whole place was gutted by fire."

He said he got under the water which was by that time flooding the store, swam outside and jumped over the wall of the opposite Shell filling station and rushed to the hospital.

"My boss, the lady worker and I were in the room but I don't know where they are now," he said.

Suzzy Davids, another victim who was at the filling station taking refuge from the rain, said she was trapped in the place with other people when they heard a loud sound.

"When it happened, everybody started running for their lives. I could not remember where I passed; all I saw was that I was at a place and started screaming when I regained consciousness and people brought me to the hospital.

Victims recovering

Head of the surgical emergency ward, Sarah Assan Appiah, said there had been significant progress in the condition of the patients in the last five days.

She said the hospital currently has all the medical consumables to take care of patients.