Recently one of our members had a small fender bender on the way to work. I was called since I’m the first point of contact in an accident and another member who stopped to help her; accidently locked their car keys in their car so I also needed to take them their spare set of keys which I keep.

The accident occurred when a military convoy truck had a tire blow out and brushed against the member’s car, it caused her to stop which caused a person getting out of a taxi behind her to get pinched between the taxi and her car and she was complaining that she was hurt. There are no ambulances or police cars that go to accidents so I told her to pay a taxi to take this girl to the hospital. When I arrived at the scene, the hurt woman’s friends wanted to know what we were going to do about this, I explained that we helped get her to the hospital but the accident was caused by someone else, who had long since left the scene. I agreed that I would have someone call the hospital to make sure she was OK.

Less than 20 minutes later three of her male friends were at the front gate of our compound demanding to speak with the female driver of the vehicle. I didn’t think it was appropriate that they speak with her so I went to the gate to try and calm them down. After speaking with them for a few minutes our security guard joined the conversation trying to help me but it ended up being a shouting match between them and the security guard because they accused him of not being Cameroonian.  They didn’t want money; they wanted someone to go to the hospital. So I grabbed a car and drove the three of them across town to one of the more expensive hospitals.

After finding their friend I agreed that I would pay for the x-rays, then the doctor gave me a list of medicine that she needed so we drove a few blocks away to get way too many medications, hospitals don’t keep medications on hand, you need to go to the pharmacy if the doctors say you need anything. Then I spoke with the doctor about her x-ray, HIPAA doesn’t exist here, and he told me she was fine just dehydrated. So I paid for the 2 x-rays, approximately $30 if you’re curious, and went back to the office.

Lesson I learned for the day, if you have an accident the insurance company will actually go to the hospital and sit with the injured and pay the bills so you don’t need to.