There was near disaster at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium during last Sunday’s Premier League match between Alhaji Grunsah’s King Faisal and Kpando Heart of Lions when youngster, Kwame Bempong, collapsed in the 34th minute after clashing with an opponent.
It was a scary scene as the player lay on the turf struggling for his life, with Referee Emmanuel Dally Dagba becoming hysterical and desperately shouting for a medical officer to revive the player.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of any medical officer around to revive the player who was gasping for breath, and desperate calls for an ambulance to convey the player to hospital for emergency medical care also hit the rocks as no ambulance was at the stadium at the time of the incident.
And with the sparse fans at the stadium yelling on top of their voices for urgent medical attention for Bempong, it took the intervention of personnel of the St John’s Ambulance group to resuscitate the player for close to 15 minutes as the game was halted. After the player was revived a sympathiser offered his unregistered Toyota Camry saloon car to send Bempong to the hospital for further medical attention.
Strangely, it was not until the second half of the scoreless match before an ambulance appeared at the arena. And about 20 minutes into the second half another ambulance appeared on the field to carry an injured player much to the annoyance of the fans who responded with boos at the operators of the ambulance.
The lack of emergency response system took the shine off the game with Faisal wasting many scoring opportunities and had only themselves to blame for not burying Lions under an avalanche of goals for the three points at stake.
But in a sharp reaction, the Ashanti Regional Sports Development Officer, Sakah Acquaye, told the Daily Graphic the only ambulance at the stadium had been dispatched to an accident scene to convey the injured to the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
A back-up ambulance was expected at the time as a stop-gap measure but its arrival delayed to pick the injured player mid-way to the hospital.
Mr Acquaye said the Baba Yara Stadium has arrangement with the National Ambulance Services to station two ambulances at a given time but explained that because “we work hand in hand with other major institutions such as the Okomfo Anokye Hospital, we always support each other.”
Unfortunately, at the time of the near disaster at the stadium, both ambulances were out to attend to other disasters.
Mr Acquaye called on the Ministry of Youth and Sports to provide at least an ambulance each at all the league centres to avoid a recurrence of such incidence.
By George Ernest Asare/Daily Graphic/Ghana
