JEDDAH, 25 May 2007 — A Filipino civil engineer, who had just rejoined his company in Jeddah after an emergency leave, was killed early yesterday in a road accident.
Arab News gathered that Diosdado Bautista Santiago, about 50 years old, was driving along a road in Al-Salamah district when a speeding police patrol car chasing another vehicle slammed into it.
Santiago’s body was at the morgue of the Saudi-German Hospital yesterday when Arab News paid a visit.
Nurses at the hospital, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to talk to the press, said the victim was brought to the emergency room at 7:40 a.m. and declared dead at 8:05 a.m. after attempts to revive him failed.
It was not clear when exactly did the accident happen, but one hospital worker said they were told by a Red Crescent staff that they may have spent six minutes retrieving the patient from the wreckage of his car and taking him to hospital.
“He sustained bone fractures from the left face down to his left leg,” said one nurse.
Hospital staff said they were told that the police officer involved in the accident was at another hospital, in “critical condition.”
Santiago’s colleagues said both the victim’s and the police car were heavily damaged.
Larry Domingo, one of Santiago’s friends, said the victim arrived in Jeddah from a 20-day emergency leave to the Philippines on Sunday. He was just on his third day at work when he met his fate.
Santiago, a site engineer at Al-Bihar Construction Co., was on his way to their project site in Muhamadiyah from another project on Malek road when the accident happened, said Domingo.
Santiago was said to have been working in the Kingdom for 22 years and that his family is in the Philippines. He is from the town of Lubao in Pampanga, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s home province, north of Manila.
From the hospital, Domingo and his colleagues went to the Philippine Consulate General yesterday to report what happened to their friend.