give an account of road accident in which reference and day you were injured
Answers
Deana is my daughter. She was 17 years old when her life was cut short. Deana was with four friends going to a birthday party. They had just got out of a taxi and were trying to cross the Nile Corniche in Maadi. The traffic is heavy, chaotic. There are no traffic lights, no crosswalks, just a constant stream of speeding, weaving cars, trucks and buses. You have to dart across several lanes of traffic to get to the other side. Deana was hit and killed by a speeding bus as she tried to cross the road. The bus driver didn’t even slow down.
I was in Damascus at the time, travelling for my work. My brother-in-law called me to tell me the terrible news that my baby girl had been hit. You can imagine my guilt. I should have been in Cairo. I could have driven her to the party.
Deana loved so many things, she loved life. She had an infectious smile. She always had time for other people more than for herself. She wanted to be a paediatric dentist – she loved kids. She had a special love of angels. She always had pictures or figurines of angels in her room. For us, she has become the “Angel of the Nile”.
Everyone was deeply affected by Deana’s death, her family her friends, the entire community. I think of ripples of pain, an ever-widening circle of those who were affected. My wife, son and I had to leave Cairo after Deana’s death. It was too painful, too many memories. We came back to Cairo just a few months ago.
I guess that early on I made a decision. I could roll up into a ball in a foetal position and never wake up. It would be very easy to do this and give up. But I felt that I had tried to make sense out of the senseless, the unbelievable. I decided to do something tangible, something that would save other people’s lives.
An NGO, the Safe Road Society, started because our daughter lost her life. It is dedicated to making the roads in Egypt safer for its citizens. Our first project is the building of a pedestrian tunnel under the Maadi Corniche El Nile. Governmental permits have been obtained and request for construction bids sent. Our next step is to ensure sufficient funds are raised through voluntary donations to complete this life saving project. This busy road of death runs alongside the serenity of the Nile River. Many concerned and dedicated Egyptians and foreigners have joined together with the goal to make the tunnel a reality. Also, a scholarship was started in Deana’s name at her school and every year a graduating senior who smiles and brings light to another student’s day is awarded a helping hand.
By building a pedestrian tunnel we hope to save lives and, in my dreams, to see my Deana, my Angel of the Nile, looking down upon us and smiling in approval.