Apam drowning: Psychologists to offer counselling support to survivors and bereaved families
A team of 30 psychologists from the Ghana Psychological Association has arrived at Apam to provide support for bereaved families and the two survivors in the Apam drowning tragedy which took the lives of 13 teenagers.
The team drawn from the Mental Health Authority as well as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection will be providing counselling services to families and survivors.
According to the President of the Ghana Psychological Association, Dr. Collins Badu Agyemang, the team will undertake a one-week session with the families to help them deal with issues of anxiety, depression, and fear.
He stressed that there was definitely a need for psychological support, adding that he is optimistic of a positive outcome from their efforts.
“Life-changing events such as this accident that claimed lives affects the thought process of people. People will be worried. They will not be able to sleep.”
“Some of the survivors especially may be seeing images and pictures. They will not be able to eat. Parents are worried. They cannot sleep, they cannot do all these things,” said the psychologist.
“Our goal is to ensure that people don’t die as a result of these challenges they face. People should not be left to feel hopeless and helpless when indeed, professionally, we have skilful ways of building their resilience to deal with the challenges and distress that follow such sad events.” He told Citi news monitored by theghanareport.com.
About the incident
On Sunday, March 7, 2021, at least 20 teenagers drowned at a beach in Apam.
The incident happened at about 5 PM.
The Apam District Police Commander, DSP Moses Osakonor, who gave a chilling account of the incident, said the teens sneaked to go swimming, disregarding the ban on beach activities in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.
According to a police report, while the children were swimming, a high tide swallowed them up.
The timely intervention of a Good Samaritan saved the lives of two of them as they were rescued and sent to the St. Luke Hospital to be attended to.
The search party immediately jumped into the sea in an attempt to retrieve the bodies throughout the night but it was unsuccessful as they did not find other bodies either dead or alive.
Luck smiled on the team on Monday morning (7 am) as the dead bodies of four of the teens were retrieved.
Three hours later, the search team again retrieved three bodies. The total number of bodies retrieved as of Tuesday morning was 13.