A 43-year-old electrician in Bayelsa State, Sobokime Igodo, was attacked two days to Christmas by a cow intended to be slaughtered for Yuletide celebration. The elder brother of the deceased, Eniye Igodo, speaks to DANIELS IGONI about the sad incident
How are you related to the late Sobokime Igodo, who reportedly died after being attacked by a cow?
My name is Eniya Igodo. I am the immediate elder bother of the late Sobokime Igodo. He was 43 years old.
In what circumstances was he attacked by a cow, leading to his death?
Actually, you know we are in the festive season and he and his group of friends decided to contribute money to buy a cow so that they could slaughter it and share among themselves and make merriment with their families. So, on December 23, they brought the cow to his residence as the secretary of the group. But where the cow was kept was not the actual spot they wanted to slaughter and butcher it. They tried to move the cow to the spot where they wanted to slaughter it, but the cow refused to move. It stayed put to the ground. Somebody was holding the rope with which they tied it. Suddenly, the cow got up and rushed towards Sobokime and attacked him, hitting him, and he fell to the ground immediately. The person holding the rope could not restrain the cow as it got loose from the rope. The cow left him and ran in another direction after nobody in particular.
Did he get up from the ground afterwards?
No. We were expecting him to stand up from the ground but he could not. He lost consciousness briefly, but regained it almost immediately. We asked him how he was feeling and he said it felt like he was floating; we tried to raise his hand but it fell down. We also tried to raise his legs, no way. Instantly, he said he could not feel any sensation in any part of his body. There was complete paralysis.
What did you and other people do at that point in time?
We rushed him to the Yenagoa Federal Medical Centre. The doctor who attended to him said he had sustained a spinal cord injury and that the hospital had no specialist to handle his case.
The doctor then recommended that we should take him to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital or University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital or Enugu. So, we chose to take him to UPTH since it is closest to us.
Did you leave for UPTH that same day?
No. The next day, December 24, we arranged for an ambulance and took him to UPTH. He was talking with us in the ambulance on our way to UPTH. He said he was having difficulty breathing. As soon as we got to UPTH, he said we should get him out and we promptly did so. We called the attention of a doctor because FMC Yenagoa gave us a referral letter. So the doctor gave him quick attention. My brother was taken to the emergency unit for the doctor to examine him. It was while the doctor was examining him that he gave up the ghost.
Did Sobokime participate in the attempt to move the cow to the actual spot where they wanted to slaughter it?
The group hired the services of two butchers; one of them held the rope on the neck of the cow and the other held the rope at the cow’s back. My other younger brother told me that someone had called Sobokime on the phone to meet him at the junction nearby, and he wanted to go meet the person but he changed his mind to also assist the butchers to move the cow to the right spot for slaughtering. He joined the one in front of the cow, and that was when the cow suddenly sprang up and attacked him, and he fell down.
