NIGERIANS have flagged lapses in the emergency response procedures given to a former two-time heavyweight champion, Mr Anthony Joshua, who had an accident on Monday, which killed two of his trainers.
Anthony Joshua’s vehicle collided with a stationary truck on a major expressway in Ogun State, near Lagos, killing two of his close friends and team members, Mr Sina Ghami and Latif ‘Latz’ Ayodele.
Joshua was taken out of the hospital and moved to a hospital in Lagos. However, his handling did not go down well with several Nigerians, who had watched the boxer writhe in physical and emotional pains after the accident.
“Anthony Joshua was reportedly seated in the back seat which, statistically, is often safer. And yet, in a moment that exposed a dangerous gap in emergency training, responders moved him, and made him sit in the front seat. That single act could have killed him,” a medical doctor, Mr Ose Etiobhio, posted on X.
“Not loudly. Not dramatically. Quietly. Because in trauma, what you do not see kills first. Even if he was talking, and conscious, and even joking because human beings do that, we smile at the edge of disaster, he could have been carrying invisible injuries like secrets beneath fine clothing,” he said.
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“Talking is not stability. Walking is not safety. Sitting is not okay. And this is why, in trauma care, we live by one stubborn principle, repeated until it becomes instinct: Assume the spine is broken until proven otherwise. Because making a crash victim sit flexes the neck. And it increases intracranial pressure. And it worsens internal bleeding. And it removes the body’s own fragile splinting,” the medical doctor warned.
He stressed that a patient in Mr Joshua’s condition should not be moved unless fire, flooding, or death itself was approaching, noting the need for healthcare workers to do certain things in such a situation: apply a cervical collar, keep the patient supine, flat, aligned with gravity and caution.
“Assess airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure, ABCDE, because order matters when chaos arrives early. Control bleeding. Give oxygen if you have it. During extraction, log-roll only, with discipline and alignment. Use a spinal board or a vacuum mattress. No sitting. No standing. No ‘let him be comfortable,’ because comfort can kill. During transport, monitor continuously. At the hospital, allow the healthy workers take over… activate the trauma team. Do CT scans, not assumptions. Invite surgeons, anesthetists, radiologists, because survival is a team sport. This is how lives are saved. This is how paralysis is prevented. This is how countries function,” he added.
Another X user, @PoojaMedia, posted: “We should all be calling for the same things, such as a good response team, emergency healthcare, and first aid, but most dwell on what is not. Reckless driving and overspeeding were also not talked about enough, but instead, the agenda of bad roads against Ogun State overshadowed the real conversation.”
A relationship advisor, Agba John Doe, wrote: “Shouldn’t the minister of health for Nigeria or the commissioner of heath for Ogun state, explain to Nigerians why there were no ambulances on site? They don’t care.”
An X user, Dr Taiwo, questioned why everything in Africa seemed different from how things were done in other continents. “Africaaaa!!! When will we ever get it right in the Black Nations, why are we Cursed with Selfish, Greedy & Wicked Leaders…Anthony Joshua just had an Accident in Nigeria, Lost his 2 friends due to Bad Roads, Poor Emergency intervention and Rotten Healthcare…”
Another X user, @Optimus_Dracula, posted: “Anthony Joshua, a global sports icon, was left sitting in a police vehicle after a serious accident. No ambulance. No stretcher. No emergency care in sight. If this is the standard response for someone of his status, then it’s frightening to think what we Nigerians have been subjected to. A country that fails its people at the most basic level.”
Nigeria’s healthcare system has been severally been pilloried for its inability to respond to emergencies. “It is estimated that over half of all deaths in low-liddle-income countries (LMICs) can be averted by effective emergency care delivery. In Nigeria, that would translate to approximately 1 000 000 lives saved every year, or 3000 lives every day,” said researchers Agnes Usoro, Ayobami Olufadeji, Benjamin Aiwonodagbon, Jonathan Strong, Sean Kivlehan4, and Babatunde A Akodu.
“Like in most LMICs, Nigerian emergency departments are run by providers with little to no dedicated specialty training in emergency care as there are no recognised postgraduate training programmes in emergency medicine. It is estimated that, of the 1.6 million deaths recorded annually in Nigeria, 10 percent–15 percent occur in emergency departments. Lagos is one of the few states in Nigeria with a public ambulance transporting system, but many of these ambulances are non-functional.”
