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Police Officer Hospitalized after Being Ran Over By Bus At Roadblock.

A police officer attached to Kirwara Police Station Tuesday night survived death by a whisker after he was hit and almost run over by a bus while manning a roadblock along Thika-Kenol Highway.

The officer, identified as Constable Samson Mwanzia Muthunga, was in the company of other officers at the Mukeu police roadblock near Makenji Shopping Centre at around 10:00pm when he was hit by the bus.

“We were on duty inspecting vehicles to ensure safety and flush out illegal elements. I had just finished inspecting a lorry and was on the edge of the road, way out of the tarmac. As the lorry was leaving, a speeding minibus was flagged down for checking by one of my colleagues. All over sudden, it veered off the tarmac towards my direction. I tried to run and jump off  towards the ditch but it was too late,” Mr Mwanzia said.

The bus hit the officer and threw him underneath it but was very lucky not to have been run over by the wheels. He was dragged and rolled over and over on the surface for quite some distance. 

Immediately, the bus came to a halt, his colleagues along with some of the passengers in the bus rushed and retrieved him from the bottom of the bus. Mwanzia lost his right ear in the incident, fractured his left leg and sustained some head and body injuries.

They rushed him to Thika level 5 Hospital where he was immediately admitted. 

The driver of the bus belonging to Pwani Coach managed to escape and by the time we went to press, he was still at large. Meanwhile, the bus taken to Thika Police Station where it was detained. 

Speaking to Thika Town Today from his hospital bed on Wednesday evening, Mwanzia said that though he was in pain all over, he had only God to thank for being alive. 

Thika Town Today had earlier in the day been attracted by uneasy protests by the bus passengers who were complaining about being forced to spend the night in the bus. By midday Wednesday, they were still stranded at Thika Police Station awaiting to be transferred to another bus to Mombasa. 

One man told us they had left Maua Town for Mombasa the previous day. He said that their driver must have been very new in the route because he was constantly under instructions from a colleague who kept updating and navigating him on what to expect on the various sections of the journey.

He alleged that prior to the accident, the driver had just been warned of a police roadblock and before he could stop the bus, they were already at the scene.

“He just realised that he would ram on to a lorry that had been stopped by the police at the roadblock. He swerved the bus off the road, running over the police officer who was standing by the roadside,” he said.

Efforts to reach the bus crew or the owner were fruitless.




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