'15 strong army men did nothing to save my wife' - Husband of missing doctor recounts

A team of 15 soldiers deployed to rescue 32-year-old Dr Aya Hayfron as she was being swept away in her car by floods that resulted from Monday’s several hours of downpour, "were just there" and "did nothing" to rescue the drowning lady, Mr Bernard Kofi Adjei Oppong, husband to the missing medical doctor has said.

Mr Oppong told sit-in host of Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Wednesday, 20 June 2018 that the police, after he had reported the emergency to them, “called in a rescue team of military men – they were about 15 – to report to the scene. Really honestly, they did nothing, they just came to do theories and moved from one side of the road to the other side trying to presumably measure the depth of the water, flowing flood or whatever but they did nothing, 15 strong men they did nothing”.

Mr Oppong said the soldiers “came with two big trucks, so, I was very happy when they came. In one of the trucks, they had two boats or canoes, so, I thought maybe we were all going to go because I was even telling them: ‘Look, if you won’t do anything, tie a rope around me and drop me in the water, so, I just go’, but all they were saying was – where we were on the Teshie Bush main road, there was another bridge there, so, we were on that bridge … – how the space below the bridge was too small for the car [Dr Aya Hayfron’s car] to go under the bridge but they think the car went over the bridge instead of under, so, it’s likely the car has been washed off, not necessarily in the river and they couldn’t go into the water because a flowing water is dangerous to everybody”.

“So, they couldn’t do anything, even whatever pole they took to measure the depth of the water, I asked them what’s the depth, they couldn’t even tell me how high it is so I could know whether to go in or not to go in; they couldn’t give me that information, they were just there, honestly they did nothing, we were at it for almost three hours and then they left, and said they couldn’t do much”, Mr Oppong narrated.

Rescuers are still searching for the mother-of-one two days after the incident. Two passengers she offered lifts, were rescued successfully on the fateful day but she got swept away by the floods.

Dr Hayfron was returning home to Teshie from choir rehearsals from her church at Kokomlele as the rains fell.