DOHA: An open manhole near the women’s entrance of Qatar University led to a tragic car accident late last Thursday evening in which a young Qatari boy was critically injured and is lying in hospital in a coma.
The boy suffered fractures in his skull and internal bleeding in his brain, his father told Qatar Radio’s popular call-in programme, Good Morning, My Beloved Country, yesterday.
In an emotionally charged voice, he said he was driving past the women’s entrance of Qatar University a little after 9.30 on Thursday night when his car suddenly hit an open manhole and was dangerously flung off the road in an instant due to the impact.
His son who was in the car suffered severe injuries in his head and broke his skull, he said. “He is having internal bleeding in his brain.”
The man said he wondered who should be blamed for the accident. “Should we complain against the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) or should we raise an accusing finger at the (municipal) Minister or his subordinates?”
“Ashghal engineers should be held accountable and sent for police investigation.”
According to him, a Qatar University employee had one of his car tyres punctured after hitting this open manhole nearly a month ago.
The incident prompted the authorities concerned to cover the manhole by putting a slab and on top and cementing it. The cover later caved in and the manhole was left menacingly open again, said the man.
Earlier, the Messaieed road was notorious for its nightmarish and dangerous open manholes and now they are common on Doha roads so much so that one is at the very entrance of the women’s entrance of Qatar University, he said.
In the past one year at least two cases have been reported in which small children fell in open manholes and died.
A three-year-old Omani girl slipped into an open sewer manhole in Al Wakra and died early last January. Workers from a contracting company were doing some maintenance work in a housing compound and had left the manhole open.
It was around sunset that a girl fell in it while playing. The workers put the lid back on the manhole and left, leaving her to perish.
In a similar incident last September a five-year-old Indian boy fell into a manhole and died.
A criminal court recently convicted the contracting company worker of negligence for Al Wakra incident and sentenced him to three months in jail and fined his employers and asked them to pay blood money of QR200,000.
The Peninsula
