Survivor of Kisumu Crash to Rename Baby ‘Miracle’ After Narrow Escape

Vicklyne Adongo, one of the 24 survivors of the fatal Coptic Roundabout accident that left 27 dead, is planning to rename her seven-month-old son after he survived the fatal accident.
Speaking toThe Standard, Adongo narrated the moments leading up to the accident and how she bundled up her baby, Innocent Brighten, the youngest passenger on the bus and successfully prevented him from being critically injured.
Since the two survived the accident, she revealed that she was going to officially change his name on his birth certificate to ‘Innocent Miracle’, as the accident had strengthened her faith in God.
“I get so happy when I see my baby because sometimes I think about how heartbreaking it would have been to lose him on the road and come back home without him,” she stated.
“I used to call him Remy, but from that day, I have only called him Miracle. Even his siblings and his father call him Miracle. From now on, everyone can just call him baby Miracle because I will be officially changing his name to Innocent Miracle.”
When Adongo took the bus toNyahera to attend a relative’s burial on August 8, she took her son with her and did not anticipate what would happen on her trip back home.
With over 50 on board, the school bus snaked through the Kakamega-Kisumu highway to return them to Nyakach before the fateful accident.
Before it happened, however, she recalled Baby Miracle playing with another 10-year-old child. Once they arrived at Mamboleo, thebus started losing control.
This is when she remembers her motherly instincts kicking in, upon which she bundled him up in a leather jacket and a shuka, covered his head with a muffler and held him tightly to her chest before the bus plunged into a ditch.
“The wheels moved abnormally, and we veered off the road. In that moment, I knew an accident was coming. My only thought was to protect my child,” Vicklyne says.
“I shielded him like a hen covering her chicks. I told myself, if the bus were to fall, at least my baby would have some protection.”
The next thing she remembers was waking up at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (JOOTRH) and asking for her son, who miraculously had not suffered any major physical injuries or internal injuries.
“He was covered in blood, and we feared serious cuts. We rushed him for CT scans, X-rays, and other tests, but found no internal injuries. We dressed him, comforted him, and traced his mother. Because of the trauma, we kept him under observation,” a nurse at the facility toldThe Standard.
Of the 27 who succumbed, Adongo said that she lost many friends and relatives, and the grief has been overwhelming, but the incredible survival of her innocent baby keeps her going.
“I named him Innocent Brighten because he truly deserves that name. He survived, and for that, I am forever grateful,” she quipped.