Mrs Paulina Okoronkwo lost her husband and her son in the last Christmas day bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla in Suleja Local Government of Niger State. In this interview with ADELOWO OLADIPO, she relates  how she was confronted with the choice of whether to attend to her husband first or her son, who was also in the throes of death,  though the duo later gave up the ghost at different hospitals. Excerpts:

WHERE is your husband now?

He is dead, while our son also died  after being in intensive care for six days at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada.  Before incident happened in our church that day, we were told to rub powder which was the normal thing because that day was a day for celebration. After that, a woman who is also a member of my church that was delivered of a new born baby said she wanted me to snap a picture with her outside the church auditorium. I was at the church entrance when my husband sighted me where I was. He came and joined me there and added more  money to the one he gave me earlier to go and buy food-stuff and soup ingredients at the market.

He asked me where my children was and I pointed at where they were, trying to buy sacraments, and that was exactly where the incident happened. My children were there buying sacraments at the front of the church when the bomb explosion happened. In fact, I was still talking to him and I had not even finished  with him when I  thought I saw a photographer appear and I wanted to look very well whether  it was the woman that asked me  to snap photograph with her  that  brought the man.  Before I could turn my eyes back to my husband, I heard a loud sound but I  did not give much attention to the sound because overtime, the loud speaker in the church used to make sudden noise. When I observed that the sound was more than what it used to be in the past, I felt the loud speaker was going to burst that fateful Sunday morning. Later, I saw that there was confusion around me and I also joined in running for cover, but when I came to my senses, I asked myself: ‘what is the meaning of this? Can it be bomb blast?’ because I never knew what was going on. I now followed through  the main road close to the church entrance and immediately I remembered that that was where my children were standing. I was not even thinking of my husband because  I thought  he was safe, and prior to the loud bang, the two of us were together.

What happened when you got to the spot where your children were buying sacrament?

When I got there, I even walked past my son because he was  covered with sand, but I saw my daughter coming  out from the direction of Reverend Father’s house , with her hand torn open.She  had been scorched by fire as her hair was half-burnt, just as she cried out to me to let us go and she was saying ‘this is Uche,’ that is, my son I saw that it was true,  I  now went to check my son and his face was very black, the eyeballs were very black, When the boy tried to open his eyes, the eyeballs could not see and he was saying, ‘help me, help me’, as cars were burning around the area he was and we kept hearing frightening sounds. We managed to  push him inside a car  and when we reached Lucas Hospital here in Madalla, we were told that the Hospital was filled up with  many of the bomb blast casualties. We ran from a street called Dan Waraka road to Suleja General hospital  because what we were looking for was first aid treatment for my two children. At the Suleja General hospital, one doctor who attended  to us said that my son’s case was beyond what the hospital could treat and he referred us to University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada. I pleaded with the doctor to go with me. At the time my son breathed his last, I put my nostrils to his own, I put my tongue on his own because he was the only son I had and I could not stand the agony of  watching  him die in my presence, hence I did all I could to ensure that his life was sustained.

After putting you and your son inside the ambulance on your way to University of Abuja Teaching  Hospital, did the boy regain consciousness?

When we were inside the ambulance, the drips that the doctor set for him, in order to sustain him till we get to Gwagwalada pulled out of his vein and it was fixed back on him, but because the boy was unconscious and was struggling, probably because he was uncomfortable with the drips, the needle pulled out again . I  now pleaded  with the doctor to help me fix it in his vein again so that the boy would have something to sustain him until we get to Gwagwalada. But on the third occasion, the boy bit the doctor on his hand as he was about to transfuse the boy with the drips. The doctor just removed the blood-soaked gloves from his hands, cleaned off his hands and with the bleeding still on my son’s face, he gave the boy a dirty slap. And this doctor is an Igbo  person. After hitting my son who was in the throes of death, everyone inside the ambulance van scattered. Despite the agonizing experience, I said ‘God, I thank you because may be this irrational and unethical  behaviour by the doctor against my son, might make my son to survive the trauma’.  I kept shouting ‘the blood of Jesus’ until we reached Gwagwalada and if the blood of Jesus could finish, it would have finished that day  because of the rate at which people pleaded the blood, until we got to Gwagwalada.

What was the attitude of the doctors at the teaching hospital to your son and other victims?

Yes, they were fantastic because when we got there, the doctors started working on him with oxygen. I remember that I called my husband on phone, somebody  picked it and said my husband was unconscious. I told the person that I did not know how I would be able to make it to Lucas hospital at Madalla because I said I was with my son at Gwagwalada and that the boy was also unconscious at the hospital, just as I pleaded with him to please help me look for one of our church members around to help me look after my husband  pending when our son would regain consciousness so that I could come and attend to my husband as fast as I could. There at the hospital, my son was placed on oxygen, he was struggling and about eight doctors worked tirelessly to restore him to  life. They were tearing his badly damaged  skin  and were throwing it away. At a time, no matter what they put on him, blood was coming out of his body. The boy was at the same time struggling and making noise. At a stage, the doctors removed the oxygen and it was not even up to four hours, I started glorifying the name  of God.  The thing is that whenever the boy tried to gain consciousness, may be because of his being beaten up by that doctor earlier, something would just  come over him and the thing would carry him off. From there they took us to the intensive care unit.

The next day when I went back to the hospital, he could open his eyes and when I asked him, ‘Uche do you see me?’ he said yes but he died the sixth day he was taken to the hospital.