Driver goes into coma after taking fruit juice from passenger

A commercial tricycle operator, Mr. Ifeanyi Ndukwa, recently fell into coma and later woke up in the hospital after drinking fruit juice offered him by a passenger in the Isolo area of Lagos.
Our correspondent learnt that Ndukwa, who became unconscious shortly after he drank the fruit juice, regained consciousness the following morning in a hospital, where he was admitted, as a result of his condition.
The incident, which took place at Ajao in the Isolo area of Lagos State, occurred at about 9:00 pm.
It was gathered that the victim had been contracted by four male passengers, suspected to be business associates.
The four men had asked him (Ndukwa) to take them to a particular place within the area. Ndukwa charged the four men N500.
When Ndukwa took the men to their destination, they were said to have appealed to him to wait before they all went into a supermarket, apparently to do some shopping.
After he had waited for about 15 minutes, one of the men reportedly came out of the supermarket with “two chilled 1 litre fruit juice.” He then offered one of the packs to Ndukwa, pleading with him to exercise more patience.
Ndukwa, who had yet to collect his N500 for the service rendered, opened the juice and gulped the content.
It was learnt that he immediately became unconscious and was later found lying unconscious beside a drainage few meters from the supermarket by some passers-by.
The passers-by had rushed him to a hospital, where he later regained consciousness the next day.
Ndukwa told our correspondent, “I just woke up the following day in the morning, not knowing where I was. The previous night, around nine o’clock, I took four men in my keke (tricycle) to somewhere around Ajao. I told them their money was N500 and they said no problem.
“When we got to the place they were going, they told me to wait for them, that they were coming. They went inside one supermarket and I waited for them for about 15 minutes. One of them now came and gave me a pack of juice. He gave it to me and I drank it because I was very thirty. And that was what I knew last, only to find myself on the hospital bed the next morning.”
Ndukwa said his tricycle was stolen by the men and had not been recovered.
According to him, some passers-by, who saw when the suspects were taking his tricycle away, said they thought it was the owner of the tricycle who dragged down a drunk that had messed up himself with too much alcohol.
Ndukwa said he had reported the matter to the Isolo Police Division with the hope that his tricycle would be recovered and the suspects arrested.
In her reaction, Ndukwa’s wife, Mrs. Uche Ndukwa, while thanking God for sparing the life of her husband, expressed bitterness over the incident.
The petty trader said feeding had become difficult for the family since her husband’s tricycle was stolen by the suspects.
“Things have been difficult for us. We can hardly feed because the keke has been my husband’s main source of income. My own business is not bringing much money,” she lamented.
Meanwhile, when contacted, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Superintendent Chike Oti, said the matter had not been reported to the command.
He added that he would contact the division for details of the incident.