Surviving victims of last week’s tragic accident involving students of Afia Kobi Nursing Training College in Kumasi say they are traumatized by the incident and are refusing to recount their ordeal to avoid further trauma.

The 40-seater bus on which they were travelling on a holiday trip to Lake Bosomtwe somersaulted several times before plunging into a deep valley killing one student.

Injured victims who are now recuperating at home say they would want to stay away from any discussion on the near-death experience.

The students were on their way to spend some time at the lakeside after an outreach programme when the accident occurred. Last Monday's incident has been blamed on brake failure.

Photo: Patience Lamptey (L) and Sarah Ampadu, still nursing injuries can hardly mange a smile amid walking difficulty. 

Sarah would not talk, however, Patience gathered up some courage and shared a bit of their ordeal.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I am in so much pain,” Sarah said.

She is expected to take several scans to enable doctors’ work on her hip pains.

Her colleague, Patience struggles to remember how she and her friends had left themselves go on the bus moment before disaster struck.

“All of a sudden, the driver was driving slowly so we were like what’s happening? Is it that we have shorted fuel or what? But he [driver] didn’t tell us anything. So, later on, we were about to negotiate a curve and a taxi crossed us. A few seconds later, the driver shouted Jesus – the bus then hit a tree and rolled over several times before it fell in the valley.

"I found myself lying under a rock so I tried coming out from that place. When I got out, a friend called me to help her, so I also tried to pull her out of where she was so I brought two of them-one on my left hand and the other on my right hand so when we were coming up  and I felt the pain in my spinal cord so I wasn’t able to help them again so I left them ” Patience recounts.

Photo: Despite her present condition, Patience who still has a swollen and reddened eye, is grateful 'divine intervention' saved them.

“As for me, I knew that none of us was going to survive because how the bus [somersaulted], I don’t even know what to say. I thought that none of us will survive,” she adds.

Patience Lamptey wants a Thanksgiving Day organized in the school when they resume Monday.

“We need to celebrate. We have to thank God for saving our lives because it’s quiet surprising. What happened to us is not easy,” she said.

Meanwhile, the funeral rites for the female first-year student who died in the accident is scheduled for Tuesday.