By News Desk
After six hours of combing Lagos lagoon for 22-year-old man that jumped off Third Mainland bridge, the State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and other emergency bodies have suspended search for the man over natural issues.
The agencies, in a statement on Sunday, assured that search and rescue for the man identified Daibo Toju Davies, will commence again after 48 hours.
Suspension of LASEMA activities and those of it’s First Responders came on the heels of concerted efforts by two separate teams of the agency, it’s collaborators, the Marine Unit and local divers, in a bid to rescue the adult male that jumped from the Third Mainland bridge into the lagoon, alive.
Davies, who alighted from the ash colour Toyota Corolla with registration number KSF 426 GB, yesterday activated a taxi-hailing, Uber cab, to a location which route includes Third Mainland bridge,
On arrival at Adeniji Adele end of the bridge, the man, under the guise of trying to relieve himself, instructed the driver, Idowu Badmos, to park.
Few seconds after alighting from the vehicle, instead committed suicide by jumping into the Lagoon yesterday; this forced the driver, who has been detained at Adekunle Police Station, to raise alarm.
On the reason for the suspension, LASEMA General Manager, Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, explained that suspension of the operation was dictated by extraneous factors such as strong undercurrent which divers had to swim against during search for the alleged suicidal man with hopes of rescuing him alive.
Going further, Oke-Osanyintolu explained that though the Seafarers Team of the Marine Rescue Unit attached to the Agency’s Central Zone which was launched earlier this year, had been activated alongside other First Responders, expediency and the need for swift retrieval of the victim alive necessitated the inclusion of local divers in the rescue turned recovery operation.
“Local divers have ancestral knowledge of these waters from knowledge gathered and passed from generations past combined with the experience of growing up around these waters, plus the fact that they excellent divers”.
He thereafter implored all lagosians to join hands with the Agency in the prevention and management of disasters saying that efforts of the Agency’s inclusion of people at the grassroots in order to build resilience at the local level by inclusion through the Local Emergency Management Committee, LEMC has started paying off.
