An Ethiopian marathon runner has died and five others have serious injuries after their training group was hit by a truck whilst out running in Sululuta, just north of Addis Ababa, on Saturday.
Since the accident, a ‘YouCaring’ page has been set up to help those currently in hospital.
https://www.youcaring.com/several-ethiopian-distance-runners-546679
Yonas Mekonnon is the agent for the whole group, including Ashagre Girma who lost his life.
A tragic accident has occurred in Ethiopia. On Saturday morning, a group of distance runners were hit by a truck while running in Sululuta, just north of Addis Ababa. All told, 9 people were injured, 5 seriously including one fatality.
With Ethiopia being a developing country, running on the highway is something nearly all runners do – even top stars. Health insurance isn’t something people have, and for the most part, health care is handed out only after people pre-pay for the services. One athlete possibly needs life-saving surgery so we at LetsRun.com would like to raise money to help those injured and help with the funeral expenses of the deceased.
Yonas Mekonnon of Rehobeth Athletics says the following people were the most injured.
1. Ashagre Girma – 25-years old. Deceased.
2. Damtew Tilahun – 24-year olds. Severe Head and Neck Injury. He is in critical condition. Needs surgery. (Also known as Damte Wondensentilahun and Wendwesen Tilahun. PB of 2:17:37 from Pune Marathon in December)
3 .Tamrat Worku – 28: Broken leg. Tamrat Worku Hagos ran a 62:29 pb for 13.1 in Jaipur India on January 25h.
4. Teshome Hailu -27-years old. Broken leg and left hand.
5. Ashebir – 24-years old. Broken leg.
The other 4 suffered minor injuries and are no longer in the hospital.
12-years ago, LetsRunners helped raise money for a life-saving surgeryin Kenya. Can we do it again?
We urge you to donate now here on YouCaring.com. We chose YouCaring as they don’t charge a 5% fee like GoFundMe. They have a suggested “tip” which you can reduce to whatever you want including zero (we reduced it to $5). We’ve kicked things off with a $500 donation ourselves. You can donate anonymously if you want.
We don’t know how much things are going to cost (Yonas Mekonnon is supposed to get an estimate of the medical expenses on Tuesday) but have started with $20,000 as our goal. In addition to medical bills, we’d like to help with the funeral expenses and help the deceased’s family.
The donations will be spent in the following order. 1) Medical expenses 2) Funeral expenses 3) Help the deceased’s family/Compensation for those that can’t race. If we receive an excess amount of money, we’ll donate it to an Ethiopian charity.
Source: BBC & Soderetube
