SHS student drowns in Central Region
A form one student of Gyaase Senior High School (SHS) has drowned in a river at Assin Endwa in the Assin North District of the Central Region.
The incident occurred when Joseph Asante attempted to fetch water to bathe after the entire community experienced a cut in water supply from the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
In confirming the incident, the Assin North Educational Director, Dr Juliet Otami Boateng, said the 18-year-old boy and his colleagues went to River Konkoon to fetch water to bathe after a water shortage on campus.
However, he slipped and fell into the river, leading to his death.
The school is reported to rely solely on a community water system and has no mechanised borehole as a backup.
They, therefore, rely on River Konkoon for water whenever there’s a shortage in water supply.
The three are Isaac Amoah, 8, and siblings: Elisha Kakra Adu-Noah, 9, and Samuel Tawiah Adjei-Mensah, 6.
A report by Graphic said the children had left home to play around the area of the incident and decided to wash down in a pit created by rainwater.
Unknown to the children, a mudslide had created the pit, making the base muddy, a development that made it difficult for them to swim out of the stagnant water in the pit.
The government described it as a national disaster after the death of 10 students who drowned in the Oti River at Saboba in the Northern Region.
Some students of the Saint Charles Lwanga Junior High School (JHS) were travelling on the river when their boat capsized in November 2021.
The victims were among 31 students who had allegedly gone to work on their headmaster’s farm earlier in the day and were returning home in batches when the disaster struck.
In October 2021, at least four other people died when their boat capsized on the River Offin in the Ashanti Region.
Their bodies were pulled from the river after nearly three days of searching for those missing.
Again, in March 2021, about 13 teenagers drowned at the Apam Beach in the Central Region.
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.
But the rest could not make it.
Drowning trends
Hundreds of deaths are recorded yearly due to drowning.
According to the latest WHO data published in 2020, Drownings Deaths in Ghana reached 740 or 0.42% of total deaths.
At the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, the biggest referral hospital in the Central Region, the leading cause of injury deaths were road traffic injuries (42.9%) and drowning (30%), according to research spearheaded by a Senior lecturer of surgery at the University of Cape Coast Dr Martin T. Morna.
The researchers used data from January 2012 to December 2018.
In the Greater Accra Region, the Ghana Police Hospital have issued cautions to the public to be safety conscious after receiving bodies of people who drowned at beaches close to the health facility.
The Pathology Department of the hospital recorded 68 persons drowning in 2017, with eight being females.
A total of 48 drowning cases had been recorded, 10 of them being females, as of November 2018.