One after another, four men jump into water well and drowned in Akwa Ibom

It was a tragic moment along Ogoja road, Ikom in the Central Senatorial District of Cross Rivers state as four men drown in a water well in an attempt to retrieve a bucket after the string cut letting the bucket to sink to the botoom.

One after another, they went in and never came out. Some sympathizers attributed the incident to be spiritual problem.

John Ushie who was the first to enter the well, according to a resident of the compound Janet, who narrated the ordeal, was preparing to go to work that morning and wanted to take his shower, as usual, decided to fetch water from the well but the string got cut and the bucket fell inside the well. In his attempt to retrieve the bucket, he jumped into the well and ended up gulping water and drowned.

His brother called Boniface who was contacted immediately at the Ikom Main Market rush back home on his Okada and jumped into the well in his attempt to save his brother, but drowned in the process too.

The second victims attracted the attention of a neighbour to rescue both and jumped into the well too, obviously, he too drowned.

The fourth victim who was the landlord of the compound, Eyung Ebam who had saw what happened, jumped into the well to do exactly what others coudln’t accomplish, he drowned like the others. The neighbour added . “It was at this point that nobody was willing to get into the well and the National Drug Law Enforcement, NDLEA, officials who were mounting a road block close to the house called the Fire Service and they arrived soon ”.

When the Fire Service men arrived the scene, one of the them jumped into the well with a rope around his waste, he then tied the landlord with the rope and pulled him out. He said  “He tied the rope around his chest region and gradually his colleagues dragged him out but when he got close to the point they wanted to grab him and pull him out, the rope slipped and he went down again hitting the others inside which may have eventually killed everyone inside,” the neighbour said.

The bodies of the four were deposited at the Country Hospital, Ikom Four Corners by the Fire SErvice men where the doctor, Dr. Ukwam confirmed them dead.

Explaining his side of the story, an official of the Cross River State Fire Service, Ikom, Mt Linus Eword confirmed that he got a distress call at about 7 am and he rushed there with his men to rescue the victim, but they were too late as three of them were already dead before they got there.

One after another, four men jump into water well and drowned in Akwa Ibom