I thought it was the end of me, MP Salasya recounts near-death experience in South Sudan
“Juba is hot,”
Mumias East MP Peter Salasya begins when I call to ask him about his experience
at a swimming pool during the just-concluded East African inter-parliamentary games in Juba, South Sudan.
It is just
hours after the first-time MP put up a social media post to thank God for
saving him from the near-death
experience, in which he also rules out the possibility of
him returning to the pool ever again.
This happened
during the 12th Inter-Parliamentary Games (IPG), coordinated by the East African Legislative
Assembly (EALA) and which took place between November 25 and December 1.
They brought
together Regional Assemblies and National Parliaments from the East
African Community (EAC).
And so on
Tuesday, November 29, after the day’s activities, Salasya, who was participating
in the athletics competitions, decided to take a dip in the pool.
This in spite of
the fact that the most he had experimented with water sports before was “just
playing with water like a cat does.”
“The manager
told me not to proceed beyond the shallow end but my curiosity could not let me
stay put,” he tells me.
Off went the
MP, grateful that he had all the water to himself since the other swimmers had
already left the pool.
Amid the fun,
Salasya says he slid and found himself in the deep end, struggling to get back
to the other side of the pool.
“I could not
see above the water, I could not breathe or shout or do anything. It was like; ‘Oh
my God!’ today is the end of me,’ I discovered that you cannot just walk in the
pool to the wall of the pool which is what I thought as I went in,” he says.
It took the help
of onlookers at a nearby massage parlour within the facility, two women who he
says could not swim either, but who called a Sudanese man to carry him out of
the water.
According to
Salasya, the fracas lasted nearly four minutes, after which the rescuers administered
first aid.
“Had it gone
to something like seven minutes, it would have been tough for me,” Salasya
says.
According to the latest data by the World Health Organization (WHO) published in 2020, drowning deaths in Kenya reached 1,200 or 0.46 per cent of total deaths, placing Kenya number 103 in drawings in the world.
Globally, drowning claims more than 236 000 lives each year.
WHO linked the fatalities to daily,
routine activities, such as bathing, collecting water for domestic use,
travelling over water on boats or ferries, and fishing.
The global body recommended installing
barriers, controlling access to water; training bystanders in safe rescue and
resuscitation; teaching school-aged children basic swimming and water safety
skills; providing supervised daycare for children; setting and enforcing safe
boating, shipping and ferry regulations; and improving flood risk management as
precautionary measures.
Now, from his own experience, the Mumias East
MP, says he will table a bill in Parliament seeking to introduce mandatory
swimming classes for primary school pupils.
“It seems like the best way forward. For things
like swimming, the earlier you acquire the skill the better. For one’s safety
and that of others as well. Those ladies were unable to jump into the water and
save me until the Sudanese guy came in,” he says.
With water safety knowledge, the MP argues
that last year’s Enziu River tragedy in Mwingi, Kitui County, which claimed 33 lives,
for instance, would not have been as fatal.
“In
CBC, we can incorporate this skill in the curriculum because it will save the
lives of many people. The unfortunate incident that took many Kenyan’s lives in
Ukambani when their bus drowned, with swimming skills, who know how many people
we could have saved?”
“I am
going to push it in parliament, meet with the clerk of the Education committee
t help me draft something on it and make it a motion so that it is mandatory
for every school. I know it is expensive but we have to know that anything good
must come at a cost,” he adds.
I ask about
the photos he accompanied his social media message with, of him on his knees as
four men lay hands on him in prayer.
It turns out they are from a prayer service
he held for all the Form Four candidates in Mumias East last month.
“I just recalled that day (as he was
composing the Facebook post). They prayed for me too and I thought; maybe these
were the prayers that saved me last week,” he says.
Salasya
maintains that he does not intend to go back to the water, whether to be
trained or otherwise; “I am afraid, swimming pools and I are now like water and
oil.”
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