Mr. Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, Lawyer and 2020 Presidential Candidate for the Convention People’s Party, has shared on YFM, everything that happened before and after the dreadful accident which has rendered him stuck to a wheelchair.
He told host, Rev. Erskine on the Y-Leaderboard Series segment of the Myd-Morning Radio Show that being involved in that dreadful accident which happened on the Tema motorway in 1997 is the greatest challenge he has had in life.
“I had a burst tire, then found myself out of the car by the side of the road. Being an absent father for a war when I was in the hospital was quite tough”, he said.
Mr. Ivor mentioned that about two weeks before the accident, a good friend of his at that time came to him and cautioned him to be careful on the basis that he had a feeling something bad was going to happen and it wasn’t until after the accident had happened that it dawned on him that that was what his friend had the bad feeling about.
“I think this is about listening to your instincts or the Holy Spirit. Strangely enough, that day, I promised myself I wasn’t even going to leave the house to go anywhere at all and I even had a bit of a problem with my car that day but later in the day, a friend called to say I should come to town for a quick meeting to solve a problem about some legal issue with a client.
I wrongly decided I would go so I went to change cars close by and not in my car but a different car, went to that meeting, dropped some people off elsewhere in Accra and later in the day, very late in the evening, I found myself going to drop some people off at Tema and that is when the accident occurred”, he narrated.
A car was arranged for them to be taken to the Tema General Hospital and he was later transferred to Korle-Bu.
“I remember being at Korle-Bu for about a day or so and one incident I remember is there was no light so all I remember in a flashback is being carried up some staircase on a stretcher because the lift wasn’t working.
The next thing I remember is at that time, we didn’t have Circle Dubai and there was a railway line so I remember being in an ambulance and going over the railway line in a very bumpy ride”.
According to Ivor, he probably would have been dead by now had it not been for his elder sister who was a doctor abroad. Fortunately, she recognized the nature of his injury and the family made arrangements for him to be flown out of the country to receive proper care and treatment.
“After a day or two after I arrived, that was when the real show started. Something called Assisted Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). That means your lungs stop working, your stomach stops working, everything stops working so basically you’re in a coma and you have a machine breathing for you.
I was on that for about a month or two and gradually came around, then they had to fix some other parts of my body. My shoulder, my hip, and stuff like that so I was there till September or October of the following year before I came back the year after that”.
He commented that all that time and with everything that happened; being an absent father and trying to rebuild his professional life, physiological and mental life, family life and everything else was quite a challenge but because of the way it happened and because of his belief that he was saved and how shocking it was to be still alive, to him, was a blessing and he has never had a cause for complain.
By: Maureen Dedei Quaye