•The 25-year-old restaurant worker was crossing the road when the vehicle he had alighted from hit him
•He breathed his last at Mama Lucy Hospital before he was transferred to Kenyatta National Hospital
Nancy Khaisi is seven months pregnant, but her child will never see its father David Wafula.
Wafula's life was snuffed out on the night of July 12 after a hard day's work at Cafe Deli where he was a waiter.
He was hit by a matatu at Bee Center – the same matatu he had alighted from. A good Samaritan called Wafula's colleague Vincent Otiato and informed him of what had happened.
Otiato recalled his friend's last words at Mama Lucy Hospital where an ambulance had taken him. His body was soaked in blood. “I am dying. My chest is killing me. I had alighted from a matatu belonging to Risen Sacco and was crossing the road when the vehicle suddenly sped off.
“I did not get to see the number plate as it sped off. I was the last passenger to alight.”
Wafula breathed his last at 2.15am, shortly before he was transferred to Kenyatta National Hospital. An X-ray indicated broken ribs and spinal cord.
He had clung to his dear life while in the ambulance. His mouth was covered in a breathing mask connected to four pipes from an oxygen tank. The eyes remained closed.
Just before the ambulance sped off to Mama Lucy, a small crowd cursed. Too many lives had been lost on that particular road. The gathering blamed rogue matatu drivers for the deaths. Wafula was the latest victim that night.
But the traffic was light on that Friday night. There was no honking of private motorists at matatus overlapping and stopping in the middle of the road. There were no hawkers heavily laden with merchandise.
A passerby used his phone's spotlight to light the scene where the 25-year-old waiter lay motionless, his orange T-shirt drenched in blood. His black pair of trousers was tattered, barely covering him. The face was unscathed.
The Cafe Deli waiter put up a fight – a spirited fight for his life, a desperate fight to live to see a child who was growing in his girlfriend's womb.
The family of the boy is now seeking justice for their son whom they said had been the pillar of their family.
Wafula was the last born in a family of 10. But he was the sole breadwinner.
“We hope the authorities will find the vehicle that robbed us of all we had,” Rodgers Simiyu, Wafula's brother, said a few days ago.
Nancy said Wafula had called her immediately after he was hit. “I was already asleep when he called saying he was dying. I was confused but he hung up before he could explain.”
Nancy, a student in Eldoret, said she had visited her boyfriend the previous weekend. She left him on Monday, July 8. On the morning he died, Wafula repeatedly told her to take care of their child.
“He repeatedly asked me to take care of his son that morning. He had also reminded me of our plan to visit his parents next month for introductions.”
Earlier that day on his way to work, he had called and told her that he had woken up early to clean the house.
“I wondered why yet I had only left two days earlier, leaving everything clean,” she said.
Risen Sacco chairperson Isaac Karanja disassociated his organisation from the accident even as he admitted receiving a call about the incident.
"I was called by police at the scene who told me that there was a rumour that one of our vehicles was involved in an accident at Bee Center," he said.
"I have asked all the drivers and touts working during that time. None admitted or reported an accident," he stated and tried to clarify that the person who had called him from the scene of the accident was "Wafula's unnamed friend".
A colleague of the deceased's with whom he had left the city centre on the night he died, said Wafula boarded the matatu at the Ronald Ngala, Tom Mboya Street junction, the same location Risen Sacco matatus pick passengers.
The incident was reported at Kayole Police Station.