U.B. students raise funds for accident victim
Around eight on Friday night, U.B.’s first year student nineteen year old Ashley Monima had finished classes in Belmopan and was driving home to Corozal Town when he lost control of his Chevy van and crashed near mile seventy-five on the Northern Highway. Monima, who was wearing his seatbelt at the time, was not thrown from the vehicle as it turned over but the young man was trapped behind the wheel and severely injured. He has been in surgery at Belize Medical Associates since three this evening to repair serious damage to the spine. It is not certain if Monima will be able to walk again, but the teenager’s family and fellow students are counting on public support to see that he gets the medical treatment he urgently needs.
Audibaldo Monima, Father of Accident Victim
“He said that he was overtaking a bus and at the time he was overtaking the bus, a vehicle was coming in the opposite direction and it had on its bright lights and when he saw that, the lights blinded him so he tried to avoid it and move from the road but apparently there was a lot of pile of dirt and he ride up it.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“He lost control and flipped?”
Audibaldo Monima
“He lost control. I cannot tell you what really happened but he found himself under the van.”
Gwendolyn Monima, Mother of Accident Victim
“He has serious injuries. He broke the vertebrae column in front and behind and when we arrived here at midnight Friday night, they did an emergency surgery to remove the vertebrae that was crushed and damaging his spinal cord. And so they manage to relieve that tension during that emergency surgery but today they have to repair both front and back, they have to stabilize him. So since he has the column to the front broken, they are putting in a plate to hold it together to stabilize it and a bridge to the back because they had to remove part of the column. So he is in a very, very high risk, very delicate surgery today that will last eight to ten hours.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“Are the doctors optimistic that your son will be able to walk again?”
Gwendolyn Monima
“They have told us that he will not be able to move from his shoulders down but we have faith that God will let him walk so we are at this moment clinging to our faith because we are Christians and we believe in God.”
Philip Willoughby, General Secretary, U.B. Bmp. Student Body
“At this point in time we know that the bill has surpassed seventy-five thousand dollars and as a family, as a community at the University Belmopan Campus, we are doing our part in trying to assist the family and our friend Ashley in terms of raising funds.”
Anthony Lucas, President Elect, U.B. Bmp. Student Body
“Presently, we have a round trip ticket to Houston and back, so basically we have raffle tickets and we want to raffle that ticket and we also want to have a basketball game. The proceeds form the basketball game will go directly towards the account and also we want to have a school dance hopefully with the support of the University of Belize there in Belmopan.”
Gwendolyn Monima
“He knows that he cannot feel part of his body but he believes it’s temporary. He will be told later on otherwise and at that time he will be needing a lot of counselling. So we are all praying, all of Belize and even Honduras, even in the States people are praying for him. Many prayers has gone up so we know God will do the miracle.”
Philip Willoughby
“I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the Board of Trustees to look seriously at implementing some sort of insurance scheme or plan for the students.”
If you would like to assist the Monima family, financial donations can be made into Belize Bank account number 5785.
