“I thought I’d be burnt alive,” Nigerian lady retells story after life-changing brush with death

By Rotimi Akinola

While chasing her dream of becoming a certified nurse, a Nigerian lady was almost burnt to death in a horrible auto crash that eventually changed the course of her life.

Four months after her brush with death, she said she’s yet to reboot the nerves to hit the road again.

“I’m still afraid of travelling,” Mayomikun Sharon Mese told Newsroom on Wednesday.

Sharon, 25, nurtured the lifelong dream of saving lives as a certified nurse. It was in the process of making this happen that she faced a situation that almost drew her into the gates of hell – that’s if the situation itself can’t be described as hell.

She retold her story:

My lifelong dream has always been to be a nurse because I just want to save lives. When I did JAMB and I was given another course I rejected it because all I wan to be is a nurse. I graduated from secondary school in 2008. I had enrolled into a so-called private nursing school in 2010 but later found out the whole thing was a fraud.

Sharon later developed interest in fashion designing and decided to pursue it. Still, she remained loyal to her first love – nursing.

In September 2015, she attended a fashion design workshop in Lagos; and was also preparing for an entrance exam to study nursing at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. It was while she attempted catching up with the latter that fate made an attempt on her life.

“On Friday September 11, 2015, I was travelling from Lagos going to Ilorin,” Sharon said.

“I boarded a bus from Lagos to Iwo road in Ibadan where I boarded another one to Ilorin.

“We were around a sharp bend along Eyenkorin at about 9:30 p.m. when the accident happened,” she said.

Sharon recalled how almost all the 17 passengers in the bus had, to no avail, warned the driver to stop over-speeding.

“The driver was over-speeding and we warned him,” Sharon said.

“I guess the way he sped into the corner caused the accident. I don’t know how many times the bus summersaulted. It happened in a flash. When the bus came to a stop, many of the passengers got out. Everyone sustained injuries and two later died in hospital the next day. Immediately after the accident, we couldn’t find the driver.”

What almost happened next is why Sharon says she is still afraid of embarking on long distance travels.

“Myself and another man were trapped in the bus, then it caught fire,” she said, her voice almost choking on the emotions that tried to escape with every word she used to describe her horror.

“My bag, which contained my certificate and international passport, was burnt,” she managed to say.

“Everything got burnt. My phone got burnt. But I escaped.”

She said the flames were almost licking at her clothes when police officers and good Samaritans who had come from the neighbouring town pulled her out.

“They also pulled the other man out but he lost something,” Sharon said.

“He was travelling with a little girl, his daughter. We were all injured and taken to a private clinic at Eyenkorin. The little girl was so injured she was referred to Ilorin General Hospital.

“I was making a police report at the local police station the next day when the father walked in to report his daughter died at the hospital that morning,” Sharon said.

One other injured passenger also died in hospital. But the reckless man who drove them to their deaths had disappeared moments after the crash.

Sharon said she had a tough time coping with everything she witnessed that Friday and the following Saturday.

“My mind was blank after the accident,” she said.

“It was too much for me to handle. I just went blank. I was injured in my right arm. I was unable to eat with the hand until September 21 when I used it to eat my favourite food – rice.

“A day after that, I was able to sew clothes with the help of the same hand,” she said.

But before that hand was ready to eat rice 10 days after the accident, Sharon faced a major challenge. She had to get her mind ready for her nursing entrance exam holding less than 24 hours after the accident.

Were it not for the nursing exam, Sharon would have headed straight to Okitipupa in Ondo State where she lives with her six-member family.

It was through her family’s support, Sharon said, she was able to attend the fashion design workshop. She had graduated that Friday and was issued her certificate (which got burnt in the accident). But she still had to make the journey from Lagos to Ilorin to chase her original dream – it was all about becoming a nurse.

“I practically came out of the accident to write the exam on Saturday at UNILORIN Teaching Hospital,” she said.

She continued:

My clothes were drenched in my own blood and that of others. I called my parents that night and they were shocked but they were thankful to God I was alive. They connected me with some church members in the area who took me in and fed me. They also gave me new clothes.

I was able to write the exam but it was a terrible experience. The list came out later. I didn’t make it. I didn’t do the exam well because I wasn’t really my normal self. I couldn’t use my right hand. I had to use my left hand to do everything.

We asked her why she didn’t forgo the exam since she wasn’t in the right frame of mind and body.

“They asked me if I wanted to but I said no,” Sharon said.

It’s four months since that accident, and Sharon’s newfound fear of travelling is the least of the things the tragedy stole from her.

“I’m still scared of travelling,” she said.

“I’m not sure I will travel any time soon,” Sharon said.

She said she wasn’t even going to travel this Christmas season, a period in which Nigerians brave long journeys to spend time with loved ones (well, she’s with her loved ones in Ondo as we speak).

“I don’t know my plans again,” she revealed the bigger chunk of her mind the tragedy may have destroyed.

“I’m just devastated for now. I’m tired. I’ve been running after the nursing dream since 2008. I’ll just keep on with my fashion design work.

She told Newsroom she has now given up on her long-nurtured dream to save lives.

While that may seem the “real tragedy,” it may also be indicative of her realisation of the need to focus on another area where she is obviously gifted – fashion designing.

“I should be travelling to Lagos in 2016 to attend another fashion design workshop,” Sharon told Newsroom..