ROAD CRASH. Rescue personnel attend to one of the soldiers of the Army's 4th Mechanize Infantry Battalion who sustained injuries after a military truck fell into a ravine in Iligan City Friday night. Hours after the accident, a critically-injured soldier died while the others have been declared in stable condition. (PNA photo by Divina M. Suson)
ILIGAN CITY – A soldier died while 15 others were injured Friday night after the military truck carrying them plunged into a ravine here.
Lt. Colonel Domingo Dulay, Jr., commander of the Army's 4th Mechanized Infantry Battalion, said the soldier died due to "hemorrhage secondary to severe blunt trauma in the abdomen."
Dulay was unable to name the soldier but the latter's colleagues and relatives identified him as Private First Class Leandro Gabriel de Asis.
De Asis was one of the 20 soldiers who figured in an accident around 6 p.m. when the Army truck carrying them on their way to their headquarters in Brgy. Rogongon fell into a ravine in Barangay Lanipao.
The soldiers, all belonging to the 41st Company of the Army's 4th Mechanized Infantry Battalion, were coming from Barangay Kalilangan to conduct an activity related to the Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (TF ELCAC), Dulay said.
Aside from de Asis, 13 soldiers and two militiamen were brought to the hospital, while four soldiers were immediately discharged as they only sustained minor injuries.
All the 15 soldiers have been declared in stable condition, Dulay said.
"It was raining since early morning while we were going to the area. The road is newly-scraped and filled with limestone, so we had difficulty traversing the area," he said.
Dulay said an investigation is ongoing as to the cause of the accident. (PNA)
