MADINAH, 30 October 2007 — Marwan, the Sudanese boy who was critically injured in an accident in an amusement park during the Eid holidays, has been put on life support after being pronounced brain dead on Sunday by doctors at a government hospital in Madinah.
The boy sustained fatal injuries when he fell to the ground out of one of the park’s rides from a height of 10 meters.
An official of Civil Defense held both the proprietor of the amusement park and the father of the boy responsible for the accident.
In fact the preliminary report of the Civil Defense blamed the workers at the park for not tying the security belt around the boy and thus causing him to fall.
The report also said the amusement park owner did not enforce safety regulations at the facility.
At the same time, Civil Defense held the boy’s father equally responsible for the accident, as he allowed the boy to ride without verifying the safety measures, the business daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported yesterday.
Contradicting its own report, Col. Mansur Al-Johani, official spokesman for Civil Defense, said the owner of the park had produced all the documents to prove that he had fulfilled all safety stipulations laid down by Civil Defense.
Muhammad Sadiq and his Russian wife, parents of the boy, said they would complain to the Madinah governor about the irresponsible manner in which the owner behaved following the accident.
Sadiq alleged that the owner had not paid the hospital bill though he had earlier promised to meet all expenses for the boy’s treatment
The situation compelled Sadiq to shift the boy from the private hospital where he had shown signs of improvement to a government hospital where his condition worsened.
“The owner of the amusement park promised to meet all expenses of his treatment at a private hospital. But later when he refused to pay, I had to move my son to a different hospital,” Sadiq said.
Marwan is the only son of the couple who work at a hospital in Tabuk. They were spending their Eid holidays in Madinah when the accident occurred.
Saud Al-Hojaily, a legal expert, said the park management was fully responsible for the accident because the accident itself was clear evidence that the owner had not performed proper maintenance in the park.
