Truck crushes parents, two kids to death

CREDITS: FEMI MAKINDE - PUNCH

Four members of the same family– a father, mother and their two kids– have been crushed to death by a truck laden with bags of rice.

The accident was said to have happened along the Iwo-Ibadan Road in Osun State.

A passenger in a commercial bus, who witnessed the accident, told our correspondent in Osogbo on Sunday that Mr. and Mrs. Olumide Bankole; their children, Sharon and Shama, were crushed to death by the truck which lost control in an attempt to avoid running into a queue of vehicles on the road due to a police checkpoint.

The eyewitness, who identified himself as Leke Okunola, said rescuers at the scene learnt that the family was traveling from Ogbomoso in Oyo State to Ibadan when the accident occurred around Odo Oba River on Christmas Eve.

He said the car in which the Bankoles were travelling was coming from Iwo and heading towards Ibadan, while the truck was coming from Ibadan.

The eyewitness blamed the accident on the police checkpoint, saying if the road block was not there, the accident would have been avoided.

He added that the victims were trapped under the truck for close to five hours before their mangled bodies were removed by rescuers.

A lady, who was said to have been given a free ride by the family, was said to have survived, but her hand was reportedly chopped while being pulled out from the wreckage.

Okunola added that some chickens inside the boot of the car survived the tragic accident and flew out when rescuers opened the boot. ...Punch