New details have emerged about how James Wagesah escaped death in a Kikopey accident along the Gilgil–Nakuru road that claimed five family members.
Speaking to the media, Wagesah said the group had travelled to Kisumu to lay his mother-in-law to rest and were on their way back to Nairobi when the accident happened.
Wagesah explained that he attended the burial himself but departed earlier, leaving his wife and the others to travel back on Sunday.
“We were together, they lost their mother and I left after the burial and told them they can come back to Nairobi on Sunday. We buried the mum in Kisumu on Saturday,” he saids.
Describing the moment he began to suspect something had gone wrong, Wagesah said the pain in his account was sharpened by the fact that his immediate family was small.
He said he had only a wife and a daughter as his close household, making the losses even more overwhelming.
“I only had a small family, my wife and my daughter, just the two of them,” he said, as he struggled to put into words the full scale of what happened within a single night.
Wagesah added that his concern started when he failed to reach his family.
He said he attempted to call them repeatedly but could not get through, increasing his fear and leaving him in uncertainty for hours.
It was the police who eventually answered the calls and provided the first confirmation that there was an emergency.
Officers, according to Wagesah, took the call and informed him that an accident had occurred. He said they then directed him to report to Gilgil Police Station for further details.
When he arrived at the station, Wagesah said he learned what he described as the most painful truth.
He said the family that had set off to mourn one person came back home to find five more to be mourned, turning what was supposed to be a journey of grief into a catastrophe.