Photo: Surviving Associated Airline Hostess's10 Toes, 5 Fingers To Be Amputated

Unless a miracle happens, or the Federal Government
urgently intervenes to fly Mrs Queeneth Owolabi abroad
for treatment, she would have her toes and fingers
amputated due to gangrene infection. Mrs Owolabi is a
surviving cabin crew on the ill-fated Associated Airlines
plane that crashed in Lagos two weeks ago.
But for her husband's resistance, the amputation would
have been done yesterday or today at Nigerian Air Force,
NAF, base hospital in Ikeja, where she had been
hospitalised since the crash.
Mrs. Owolabi survived the crash alongside six others,
although two of the survivors later died at the Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH.
Vanguard gathered, yesterday, that the husband of the

victim was making frantic efforts to reach the Federal
Government for his wife to be flown abroad for treatment
to stave off the amputation, especially as the government
was said to be responsible for her treatment thus far.Efforts
to reach him proved futile as his mobile phones remained
switched off yesterday and it was also not possible to speak
with the medical team at the hospital as movements in the
victim's ward was restricted by military personnel.
National President of Nigerian Airlines Cabin Crew
Association, NACCA, Mr. Charles Onuoha, who confirmed
the development, appealed to the Federal Government to
urgently come to the rescue of the crash victim. According to
him, Owolabi's 10 toes and the five fingers of the left hand
have been marked for amputation because of the infection
that had set in.
He said:
"We are calling for referral for overseas treatment, a post-
trauma stress assessment and de-briefing for Mrs Quinneth
Owolabi, and her colleague, Miss Toyin Samson, currently
on admission at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital,
LASUTH, Lagos."We are appealing for government's
intervention because that is the only thing that can stop this
amputation." Onuoha also called on the Federal
Government to beam its searchlight on the regulation of the
aviation sector to stop the frequent crashes and deaths of
cabin crew that had trailed the industry in the last 10 years.
Onuoha said though Toyin Samson's case had been
stabilised at LASUTH, she needed further medical attention
overseas.
He noted that post-trauma stress assessment and de-briefing
were a necessity for crash and hijack victims, and lamented
the attitude of the management of Associated Airlines to the
plight of the two cabin crew since the crash.