An ambulance lay on its side. The lifeless body of a woman lay a few meters away. Paramedics moved quickly.
This was the horrific scene at the intersection of M.J. Cuenco and Juan Luna Avenues in barangay Mabolo, Cebu City past midnight on Tuesday.
An ambulance is a vehicle for saving life. The woman one who lay immobile on the road had been watching out for 37-year-old patient Michael Jasmin who was being transported to the Mactan airport where a chartered plane, an air ambulance, was to bring him to Singapore for further medical treatment.
Trecie Abano, a Singapore-based Filipina nurse, was sent by her employer, Hope Ambulance for this out-of-town mission.
Seated near the rear door of the Chong Hua Hospital ambulance, Abano was thrown out when the vehicle took a violent spin after impact. Her patient survived, firmly strapped to the gurney.
The driver of the speeding pick up truck, 20-year-old Noel Anthony Logarta was accosted by police after he squirmed out of the the airbag that had cushioned his own landing.
In the hospital, he tested positive for alcohol use.
The accident, a rare occurence of a nurse getting killed in the line of duty, underscores the importance of road safety in the city and elsewhere.
The streets were virtually empty of traffic past 12 midnight.
Alcohol and carelessness on the road don’t spare unsuspecting motorists, not even medical staff on an ambulance with siren and blinkers on.
Authorities need to come down hard on reckless driving and not give way to the usual amicable settlement that “resolves” road accidents.
Intensify random drug testing of public utility drivers. Review their traffic literacy when they apply for licencese.
Enforce a firm no-drinking-while-driving policy.
It’s time we stop making our roads freeways to the grave.