The severity of the facial injury sustained by 48-year-old Adeola Adaraloye jumps at anyone entering the male ward of the Trauma and Burns Centre at Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos. His entire face had become frighteningly yellow.
When one of our correspondents visited the ward on Thursday, his nose was dripping with blood; his two swollen hands had been wrapped in multiple bandages while pus and water dripped down his blood-ridden face at intervals.
The burns were as fresh as could be imagined, and one could feel the enormous pain he was going through on the hospital bed he had been confined to for the past few days.
This is what had become of Adaraloye, a vibrant officer with the Lagos State Fire Service, after he suffered severe burns in the early hours of Monday, during an explosion at a cooking gas plant, owned by Second Coming Nigeria Limited at Magodo, a posh estate in Lagos metropolis, on Monday.
Adaraloye, a Principal Fire Superintendent with the service had been deployed to lead a team of firefighters to the premises on CMD Road in response to a distress call from the company, complaining of gas leakage in its facility.
But moments after his team got to the scene, and while they were still trying to turn off the valve to stop the leakage, there was a massive explosion, triggered by the exhaust pipe of a passing vehicle some metres away, which spread rapidly to the plant.
Beyond the loud bang and the havoc wreaked on the premises, two persons were soon confirmed dead at the site, while Adaraloye and few others suffered severe injuries.
The incident seems to have changed his life forever, as the burns tore the entire skin on his face, ate into part of his head and ripped his ears open.
Adaraloye, who could not open his eyes or speak due to the burns until Wednesday, could hardly sit or rest on his back, due to the pains. Thus, he kept looking forlornly, dozing off intermittently.
Being a civil servant, Adaraloye declined talking to our correspondent. But his wife, Nifemi, who had become flustered over the appalling state of his health, expressed deep frustration with the situation.
She noted that she could not recognise him when she first saw him after the incident and it was only by the look of his legs that she knew he was the one.
Nifemi, who had a clandestine interaction with one of our correspondents, to avoid the prying eyes of the official of the service attached to Adaraloye, said they had spent all they had.
“But, thankfully, we have received some money from the Director of Fire Service (Mr. Rasaq Fadipe), which we have spent on his treatment and purchase of drugs. He and some of my husband’s colleagues have also visited him.
“And now he has been moved to another ward for better treatment,” she disclosed in a chat with our correspondent outside the premises.”
The story of this couple, who got married last year, touched the heart deeply.
Narrating how she got to know about the incident, Nifemi said she was expecting him to return home on Monday morning, as he was on night shift on Sunday. But while she was still preparing his meal, she got a call that shattered her mood.
“The person who called said there was an incident where he had gone to work but it was minor. I tried not to panic. After some time, they came to take me to the hospital,” she said, as she took a long pause to suppress the tears rolling down her cheeks.
She continued, “When I entered the ward, I couldn’t believe it was my husband. His head was swollen and his face looked white. I screamed and ran outside; I couldn’t look at him; his face was completely gone. It was his legs that I used to recognise him.
“We thank God he is alive. The other person that was also brought in died about eight hours after they came in on Monday. He told me yesterday that if not for the personal protective equipment he had on him, it could have been worse.
“He said he tried to escape, but he couldn’t. When our daughter was brought in, she kept screaming and crying profusely. We had to lead her out. It has not been easy. His hands were wrapped in bandage because the two almost fell into pieces. That was why the nurses used the bandage to hold each hand in one piece.”
By the time our correspondent got back into the ward, Adaraloye was writhing in pain on the bed; he could neither sleep nor sit. From afar, one could feel his pain, as he struggled to open his eyes to see who his guest was.
One of his relatives also told Saturday PUNCH that they had yet to hear from the company; “not even a visit and I don’t think that is fair. Please help us tell the government to come to our rescue,” the relative who didn’t want his name in print, added.
When asked why no representative of the company had visited the victim and why no help had been rendered to the victim, the Managing Director of the company, Basil Ogbuanu, who is also the president of Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers, declined commenting on the matter.
He, however, referred one of our correspondents to another person, who identified himself as Mr. Isenna Okeke.
Okeke said the company had been holding talks with the leadership of the Fire Service daily since the incident.
He added, “I don’t think there is anybody involved in this issue that is lacking any commitment from us. We look into the issues as they are presented. We are doing our best.”
Also, when one of our correspondents contacted the Director of the Lagos State Fire Service, Rasak Fadipe, he said the service was in constant touch with the victim.
He said, “He’s in safe hands and the authorities of the hospital are aware that he’s there. If you see him the first day and you see him now, you would agree that he’s getting better, but if you see him for the first time, you might think nothing has been done on him.
“We have been paying for his drugs and I still sent N30,000 to them on Thursday and I have given an instruction that anytime they exhaust the money they should contact me.
“He has not been abandoned. We can’t abandon him. He sustained injury in the line of active duty; we have gallant officers.
“I don’t mind spending any amount to make sure he’s okay, and that would encourage others. Government is also planning to do something about the issue.”
Gas plants everywhere
The explosion at the Second Coming gas plant highlights the dangers faced by residents as the number of gas plants increases in many neighbourhoods in the country.
Many of these, according to the Department of Petroleum Resources, are unlicensed and operated by untrained people.
Every day, new gas plants seem to sprout up alongside new and old communities and settlements in various parts of the country, especially in the South-West.
In Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Mowe, Ibafo and Sango Otta in Ogun State and in surburbs of Lagos, cooking gas plants are increasingly becoming popular.
The National Chairman, Liquefied Petroleum Gas Retailers Branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Mr. Michael Umudu, said the proliferation of cooking gas retail outlets in the country had made it difficult for effective supervision and enforcement as substandard equipment and materials used by unqualified operators continued to put the lives of residents at risk.
A cooking gas equipment fabricator based in Ibadan, Mr. Idowu Elijah, told our correspondent that business has been booming in the city over the last two years.
But the increasing number of cooking gas plants being sited in residential areas has become a source of concern to many residents in such neighbourhoods in the light of the tragedy that claimed many lives in Lagos this week.
In Mowe, for instance, there are no government-installed fire hydrants; the residents living around gas plants say that they could only bank on the hope that the plant owners are taking the right precautions to prevent fire incidents.
On Oyinkan Street, for instance, there are at least two gas plants with residential buildings on either side of them.
Some of the residents on the street, who spoke with one of our correspondents, said, “God will continue to watch over us,” when asked to express their concern about the locations of the plants.
But one of the leaders of the neighbourhood, Mr. Diran Adebanbo, told one of our correspondents that he had always been concerned about the proximity of the plants to residential buildings.
He said, “Only ignorance would make people say they are leaving issues such as this into the hands of God. I don’t know whether the owners got authorisation from the authorities. If they did, I would be very surprised.
“Anytime I see those plants, I am always afraid because if there is a fire outbreak, everybody living on this street would be in danger.”
The situation is the same in Oluyole, Ibadan, Oyo State. The proliferation of gas filling plants in the area is easily noticeable.
Elijah, whose company produces fabricated equipment for many of the plants, said the siting of the plants in residential neighbourhood was borne out of the need to stay close to the customers.
According to him, business is booming for gas plant owners as a result of the fact that many people now favour the use of gas cookers over kerosene stoves.
Regulation guiding siting of gas plant
The establishment of gas plants in Nigeria is regulated by the Department of Petroleum Resources, which has some conditions to be fulfilled before the approval and issuance of licence for the “construction, modification, relocation of a liquified petroleum gas filling plant and autogas station.”
According to the DPR, after a fire report by the fire service, certification by the town planning authority, a safety, health and environment proposal for the plant must also be submitted, along with an environmental impact assessment report.
According to the Petroleum Regulation 1967, apart from this, mechanical leak tester, gas detector, personnel protective wears for the plant operators must be put in place, among many other requirements to facilitate the approval of an operating licence.
The Executive Secretary of the National Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers, Mr. Bassey Essien, said the association was also concerned about the proliferation of gas plants in the country.
He said even though Nigeria’s gas consumption rate compared to that of many other African countries was still very low, the indiscriminate siting of some gas plants in the country put the lives of residents at risk.
Essien said, “Considering the population of the country, the authorities are doing a lot to create awareness about the need to use more gas instead of kerosene and other dirty fuels.
“As it is now, Nigeria, being a major producer of the product, still has fewer consumers than its other African counterparts. This is why more gas plants are coming up now. But we are equally concerned that many of the operators may not be safety-conscious.
“DPR as the regulatory agency, is working on tackling the issue. Our association is concerned about the indiscriminate siting of gas facilities. To tackle this, we have been meeting with stakeholders on the issue. There are many of such facilities that have not been able to meet the required safety requirements.”
The Department of Petroleum Resources said that it had commenced an investigation into the fire incident at Second Coming Gas Plant.
“Most times, gas plant fire incidents occur as a result of poor management attitude or lack of safety measures,” a Director in DPR, Mr. Mordecai Ladan, said.
Source: Punch
