Car Accidents in Erbil: One Girl's Story
Jul 27, 2010
Naz Jalil Hassan is 23. Like many young women in Erbil, Iraq, Naz has a driver's license and borrows her family's car almost every day for errands and to meet her friends.
Erbil is a quickly growing city and with constant development, the streets are getting more and more packed with cars zipping through the city with little regard to traffic laws. According to Komari Emergency Hospital, 1,200 people have died and 6,000 injured from car accidents so far in 2010. One evening in early June, Naz became another statistic of the many accidents that happen in Erbil each day.
Like every morning, she had breakfast and got ready for the day. At noon she got a message from her close friend who wanted to meet up with her for dinner. At 4 p.m. her mother sent her on an errand to the grocery store.
"We went to a store called Harzan Mall. A young man working there glanced at me and I looked back," Naz said. He was tall, with blue eyes and an intense stare.
"Do you have a car?" The man asked her.
"What?" Naz said.
"Do you have a car? Are those your keys in your hands?"
"Yes," she replied.
His voice sounded strange. "Be careful," he told her.
She didn't pay much attention to his words; she was in a hurry to meet her friend for dinner.
She took her purchases and got into the car, where some friends were already waiting for her. They turned the music up in the car and were all singing a song of Alissa.
When they arrived at a light, she stopped her car because it was red. After four minutes, the light turned green.
"It was my turn to go. But suddenly, a car who wasn't supposed to go ran the red light and hit me." Her car spun around several times. The airbags deployed.
A few minutes later they all got out of the car. They were all alive, but all shocked about what just happened.
"I noticed that I was the only one who had blood all over my chest, my arm and my face. Seeing all of it, I couldn't stop crying. I was trying to remember where I put my phone because I wanted to call my parents for them to come and help me. When I found it, I was trembling so much I couldn't press the buttons."
At first, Naz called her mother, but she didn't answer directly, so she remained alone for several hours till her mother joined her. One of her sister's friends had a broken nose. The girl went directly to the hospital with Naz's sister.
"My mum and I went home. I realized while changing my clothes that I couldn't move my left arm. It was my turn to go to the doctor."
When she got the hospital, they said that her arm was broken and that she wouldn't be able to drive for a while. Her arm was cut up from the steering wheel and continued to bleed even in the hospital.
"In several weeks I will be able to drive again, but this time I will be very careful with myself and with people in the car.
"I also decided to go to that shop where that young man told me to be careful. The accident happened 30 minutes after that. I just want him to see me with my broken arm," she laughed.
Above Photo: Naz Jalil Hassan's car after her accident. (Photo courtesy Naz Jalil Hassan)
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