SUFFERING IN BITTERNESS 20 YEARS LATERS Help me please! My name is Bernard Mathenge Wanjau. My cry might not be new to some of the people for the past 20 years for I have been pleading for justice. I was working as furnace section leader in All Parts Casting Ltd, when I had an accident that rendered my life an inconceivable misery. My work entailed smelting cast iron, bronze, aluminum and copper which the company used to mould machine parts. I was transferring molten bronze into a new container on November 4 1993 when the hot metal violently reacted with the container’s cold surface and splashed on my face. Bronze is a mixture of tin and melt at a temperature aten times hotter that of boiling water. Precisely, 9500C. Shocked at the sudden heat on my face, I screamed in pain and in the process, some of the hot liquid found its way into my mouth and down my throat. I rushed to drink water from a nearby tap, to try cooling off the fire that burnt in my throat and chest, all the way to my stomach and must have passed out between the furnace and the tap. I woke up three days later on a bed in MP Shah Hospital, to the reality of excruciating pain. My face was swollen and my mouth was an ugly hole filled with red, burnt gums and tiny pieces of broken incisors and canines. Sixteen teeth were badly broken. My mother took me home in Nyahururu after I was discharged although my insides were still on fire, I hope to recover soon. I discovered I could not swallow anything, including saliva. The pain was searing. I visited the nearby hospital where an x-ray revealed my esophagus was blocked. The hot liquid metal leaped into my mouth had not only destroyed my esophagus but also most organs adjoining the food path, and still solidified and blocked its exit to the stomach, leaning a long painful wound in its path. I was referred to the Nairobi hospital where an operation corrected some of the mess in my digestive system. A lawyer who was then practicing in Nairobi but has since moved out of the country, Njoki Mwangi, cleared my nearly half a million shillings bill. My family was then broke after dad had sold a huge chunk of land to pay my previous bills. Since then my life has taken a different shape. I do all sort of jobs to earn money but this determination sends me to the wards of Nyahururu district hospital, at least thrice per year where the doctors discharge me with a stern warning to keep of heavy work if I want to live longer. I one day may die of hunger or either the heavy work. I’m supposed to adhere to a strict diet of semi solid foods like ugali, rice potatoes, carrots, bananas, mildly acidic fruits and proteins, and liquids since my insides are literally gone. I’m at times forced to try out hard solids food like githeri and sukumawiki, when the hunger is too much. I end up with a serious stomach discomfort that lasts for days. My life is not easy because it is my duty to remain alive. My bed had to be adjusted upward and so I lie in a semi-upright position to avoid unnecessary spillage of my stomach juice. I also have to remain on my left side throughout the night. It is my hope that one day this suffering will come to an end. I am appealing to all the well wishers and the government to assist me in any means possible. My life has been too expensive for me and anyone in our family and this could not be the case if I had been compensated as required by the law. You can get to me with the number 0724069862. Any kind of assistance will be greatly appreciated. God bless you.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 08:31:55 +0000
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