Boy Absconds From Hospital As Controversy Trails Thunderbolt Attack
Controversy has continued to trail a ‘thunderbolt’ attack, which chopped off the hand of an 11-yearold boy in a community in the FCT.
When 11-year-old Aliyu Idris and his mother, Hajiya Rabi Garba arrived at the National Hospital, Abuja, last Wednesday, they allegedly told doctors that Aliyu’s badly damaged hand was as a result of thunderbolt that hit his community during an early morning rainfall.
They also told doctors that he was holding a touch in his left hand when the lightning struck him and “shattered” his left hand. He was subsequently admitted at the trauma ward of the hospital.
However, there was a dramatic twist to the story when Daily Trust on Sunday visited the hospital on Thursday and Hajiya Rabi told a different story. She told our reporter that it was the battery of a popular mobile phone that injured Aliyu’s hand, and not thunderbolt.
She said the incident happened around 6p.m.on Wednesday when Aliyu was playing with his uncle in her room in their residence at Mashafa Road, Mpape, Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) while the other family members were outside.
Hajiya Rabi, who said she had lived on the street for eight years, added and that the phone battery Aliyu was playing with suddenly exploded and injured the boy.
According to her, the family members who were within the compound heard the loud sound and ran away, adding that she remembered that her son was still inside the room and ran there only to find him injured.
She rushed him to the Maitama District Hospital, but they were referred to the National Hospital, Abuja, she said.
“We were sitting outside when we heard the type of sound I had never heard before. People ran away when they heard it. But I remembered that my son was in the room and I went there only to find him seriously injured in the left hand.
“All I know is that I saw him with my younger brother, holding and playing with a phone battery. My brother told me that it was the battery that exploded, but I don’t understand what the doctors are saying,” she added.
Asked to narrate what happened to him, Aliyu said: “It was the battery that I was playing with in my hand that exploded when I connected it with a small wire.”
But a doctor treating the patient who doesn’t want his name published told our reporter on Thursday that he had never handled such a case before, but added that he does not overrule the possibility of such incidents and that there was an ongoing investigation on the matter.
He said that the boy is responding the treatment. “You can see that he can even talk, unlike yesterday. We have plastered the hand for now and are preparing to take him to the theatre for surgery,” the doctor said.
Sources at the hospital disclosed that there were conflicting opinions among health personnel on whether a battery could cause that magnitude of explosion and damage. Some of them suspected the boy was coupling a bomb which may have exploded.
However, the boy’s mother insisted that she only said he was playing with a phone battery and never at any time did she tell anyone that her son was struck by thunderbolt.
“They can go and investigate our house if they are suspecting us,” she told Daily Trust on Sunday.
But when our reporter visited the hospital on Friday for further investigation, and sought to see the child, himself and the mother were nowhere to be found.
A source at the hospital said the woman and her son absconded in the early hours of Friday and that nurses did not notice their disappearance on time.
“It may be because they were afraid that their case was generating interest and may cause them problems,” a source said.
A doctor at the hospital who craved anonymity warned that the boy’s hand was badly damaged and that it required amputation. He maintained that by absconding, he puts his health at more risk.
When Daily Trust on Sunday visited Mashafa Road, Mpape, the residents interviewed said they were not aware of any thunderbolt in the community or any case of explosion. They however confirmed that there was heavy rainfall on the date of the incident.
Fifty-five-year-old Dapo Adebayo who has lived on the street for several years, said there was no thunder or lightning during the rainfall.
“I am hearing about this thunder and explosion for the first time from you,” he said.
An aide to the District Head of Mpape, Usman Yakubu, said they were not aware about the case and that no case of thunder, lightning or explosion was reported to the palace.
The reporter could not locate the house of the patient as Hajiya Rabi Garba only mentioned the street.
When contacted, the spokesman of the National Hospital, Dr Tayo Haastrup said Hajiya Rabi told doctors when she came to the hospital that her son was struck by thunderbolt and that she has been giving conflicting stories since then.
A physicist who craves anonymity dispelled the thunder theory. He said for someone indoor, thunder or lightning would go for the highest metallic object in the area such as the roof of the house rather than a touch, even if the house does not have a thunder arrestor.
He added that the story of thunder or lightning damaging only the boy’s hand and nothing else was not true. He said for a phone battery to explode, it depends on what was being done with it, adding that it was common for phone batteries to explode while charging phones or during other electrical activities but for batteries to just explode was unheard of.
The debate is still raging as to the motive of the mother and child.