The couple was to travel together on the AIC Naki High School bus, which crashed at Kisumu’s Coptic roundabout last Friday, killing 26 mourners returning from a burial in Nyahera.
Pastor Orinda of the Baptist Church Nairobi had travelled overnight to join his wife. After morning prayers, they headed to the pick-up point, but by the time Rose arrived, the bus was already full.
“My husband told me another vehicle had been arranged for those left behind. That’s the only reason I wasn’t on the bus. But he boarded,” she said.
The alternative van ferried her and others to the burial, but by evening, it was the same cruel twist of fate.
The homebound bus from Nyahera was again full, and Orinda secured a seat. Rose did not.
Barely 20 minutes later, the bus was involved in a horrific crash.
“I stayed chatting with friends and waved as the bus left the gate. Minutes later, I got a call about the accident,” she said.
She boarded a matatu to the scene, arriving to find survivors being rushed to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital.
At the hospital, relatives gathered in tense silence.
Someone else who didn’t take the bus trip back was Kezia Nyamita, a second-year student.
She had travelled in the bus to the burial but returned in her uncle’s car. The decision saved her life.
Her uncle Gordon Nyamita later received the call no family wants – his brother George, George’s wife Margaret Anyango, an uncle and the widow of another brother were all gone.
Only one family member on that bus survived.
The Coptic roundabout, a notorious blackspot along the Kisumu-Busia highway, has claimed many lives over the years.
