Emmanuel Tornyi is a living testimony after surviving narrowly, a near-fatal accident on the Tema motorway in 2016.
Having travelled with his family to Nkawkaw in the Eastern Region for a marriage ceremony, his last thought was that he’d end up in a hospital for weeks and with a broken arm.
Narrating events as they happened on the fateful day on 3rd April 2016, Emmanuel told GhanaWeb’s Laud Harris Adu Asare that he died after being thrown out of the vehicle with all the other occupants.
In fact, he said he saw heaven and hell but was fortunate to be brought back to life.
“We set off on Sunday around 4-5 pm, thereabout. On our way back, around 7 pm on the motorway, we passed the tollbooth, headed towards Trassacco. There’s a place around CocaCola. I don’t know how the thing happened but the back tyre burst and the front tyre removed at once. The right side of the back tyre and the left side of the front tyre.
“The driver out of fear applied brake and somersaulted and threw everyone out of the vehicle. My mum, dad, aunties, everyone out and the car mangled so the only person left was the driver.
“I was lying in a gutter, in a bush by the motorway and apparently gone. I died at that moment.
“Everyone got injured but I was the only one that passed out. I was there and then I breathe just once and call out my name. I don’t know why I was doing that…maybe it is a miracle from God.
“…It was tough. Looks like if you are dead, your soul is gone but it’s just your body there. I will say that when it happened, it was like I’ve seen heaven and I’ve seen hell. I’ve been to heaven and I’ve been to hell, it was serious. Those watching may not believe it’s real. but both exist,” he said.
After 3 weeks in a coma and with a broken and inactive arm, Emmanuel still moves around, working as a journalist.
He believes government, relevant stakeholders, and the general public have, through their actions and inactions, weakened the fight against road accidents and need to sit up.
Watch him tell his story in this edition of GhanaWebRoadSafety:
