Barili boy, 12, needs operation following accident

HE said he wants to be a policeman when he grows up, but 12-year-old Jenmar Rebuyas, one of the passengers of the dump truck that overturned in Barili town last week, remains in the orthopedic ward of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.

Jenmar, the eldest in a brood of three and a  grade 5  student in barangay Kangdampas elementary school has been absent from school for three days.

He sat on the hospital bed with a bandaged right leg. He had wounds on his forehead and left knee, elbow and arm. His cheeks had scratch marks.

Physicians at the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital said he needs to undergo a bone operation.

Jenmar said he wants to go back to school soon but    is worried his teacher might not accept him when he returns. He said he regrets boarding the truck with his aunt.

Jenmar’s farmer father, Monico Rebuyas, 35, rode a motorcycle during the burial of a relative last Thursday because he was assigned to dig the grave, but the boy sat on the truck roof with six other passengers.

He said he was thrown off the roof when it crashed, landed on the roadside and fainted. His father said a habal-habal driver rescued the boy and rushed him to the district hospital.

“This incident has been difficult for us,” his father said. They are planning to go back home as soon as his son is discharged from the hospital. Doctors have yet to schedule Jenmar’s operation.