It
was the 10th of December. It was a weekend, and I was at work with Pardeep
Gupta. It was getting late, nothing happening, same old stuff and I was tired.
Then I get a phone call from Uloma. All I remember was her just saying,
“Obinna,
Obinna, start praying, start praying, start praying.”
I
knew immediately that there was a problem, and it was something serious. Now
the scale, I had no clue.
I
said, 'Uloma, what's wrong? What's going on?” How bad is it?” 'Obinna start
praying, plane crash, plane crash'.
'Ulo,
who was in the plane?’
'Obinna,
the plane crashed. Ijeoma was at the airport to pick Kechi. The plane just
crashed in front of her. It was very fatal. The plane exploded. At that point,
the worst case scenario crossed my mind and I thought, “Oh no. Plane crash at
its descent into Port Harcourt airport. No emergency services. So my first
reaction was 'No this cannot be. Ulo must be mistaken'. Ulo had dropped the
phone at that point. I could imagine the millions of phone calls going on here
and there and all she was doing was putting me in the loop. I had left my desk
to take the call, so I rushed back to my desk and told Pardeep that there had
been a plane crash and my niece was in that plane. We rushed to Sky news and
confirmed that indeed there had been a plane crash. Gosh, my heart sank. I
thought the worst had happened. I did not think anything at all would come out
of this. So I packed my bags and called Op, my wife, immediately. I told her
what was going on and that I was heading home immediately. Op panicked, we were
very agitated. I called Ulo back. “What's going on, update please!”
“Ijeoma
is still at the airport and there is no news”. I was still thinking the worst.
I got downstairs, got into my car, and started driving home, had my hands-free
on. Ulo called me back and said she heard there were some survivors, so I
called Op, and we started praying again for the survivors. At that point, even
while praying, I was thinking, 'Is it possible?' I had heard that there were
ten or so survivors, and I began to question if it was possible that Kechi was
one of them. I knew in my heart of hearts, that I had given up. My faith was
not strong enough. I was thinking, what
are the chances, what are the odds? This was me using logic again.
Meanwhile
I was still driving home. It was the hardest drive I had ever made because I
had to concentrate on driving when what I really wanted to do was to close my
eyes, open them and be in Port Harcourt. I wanted to be involved. Ulo and I
kept on calling each other continuously all the way from the city to my house,
and I was calling Op from time to time to update her.
I
cannot remember now whether I was still driving or if I had gotten home when
Uloma called to say , 'Obinna, start praising God, start praising God. Kechi
survived!’
I
asked, 'how?’
'Kechi
is in a hospital somewhere in Port Harcourt. They found her!’ I have never been
that overwhelmed with joy in my life. Nothing has come close since then. It was
like someone had been given a new lease of life. It was like God said, 'You
guys had complete faith in the face of such a disaster, so I'm giving you a
fresh start. Let's see what you do with it. ‘ That was the way I felt at that
moment.
At
this point, I cannot put the time line together because the news was coming in
fragments and I could not really get Uloma to be very articulate because I knew
she was also going through a lot, but the way I understood it, Ije had already
been to the crash site and was waiting with other parents when someone called
her, 'Are you Ijeoma Okwuchi? Your daughter is alive. Come to the hospital.”
There
was still news coming out of Nigeria that the remaining survivors were dying
one at a time, and I was praying, “God please. You can't do this again. You
have given her back her life. Please don't take it again”.
The next news I heard was that Kechi was going
to be moved from that hospital to a different one. I think Mike had come to
join her at that point, and then the news got very sketchy again, but then we
understood that Kechi was transferred to Shell Hospital. Then the rest is
history.
….My
brother, Obinna's account.
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