A 32-year-old man was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Hospital, the victim of a hit and run accident on Saturday evening.

Somadatt Seegobin

Dead is Somadatt Seegobin of 2 Bel Air, East Coast Demerara. The father of one was returning from a day’s mason work and was pushing his bicycle along the railway embankment road, not too far away from his home when tragedy hit. According to his father Kampta Seegobin, his son sustained only one hit to the back of his head. “He didn’t have a single scratch to any other part of his body,” the man related to Stabroek News when this newspaper visited the family home yesterday.

The man said that his son had just finished talking to a friend who was standing in his yard off the Embankment road. The conversation ended and the friend had just turned around when he heard the impact of the bus hitting Seegobin. He rushed to the family and informed them of the accident. The friend also told them that a 63 minibus was responsible for the accident. When persons in the area reportedly confronted the driver of the bus he allegedly pulled out a cutlass and threatened them, returned to the vehicle and drove off.

Rekha Reddi, Seegobin’s sister told Stabroek News that they were sitting on the bench in front of their yard as they do on most afternoons, when the young man rushed up and told them of the accident. She said that she ran down the road barefoot and found her brother lying on the side of the road. The bus that hit him was long gone by then and blood was splattered on the road from the wound at the back of his head; but she said that she had felt a faint pulse.

Reddi recounted that she lifted him into the back of a pickup belonging to a total stranger and they rushed him to the hospital. The wound was bleeding profusely and she took his shirt and used it to apply pressure in a desperate move to stop the bleeding. She relayed that she believes that her brother died in her arms in the vicinity of the Tutorial High school on Woolford Avenue, where they were travelling in a bid to beat the traffic lights. She said that his hands began to feel cold and his body made two jerks and then went still. When they made it to the hospital her brother was taken into the emergency by attendants but nurses prevented her from following although she begged them to let her in.

Reddi said that by peeping into the room she saw when the doctor used a light and peered into her brother’s eyes then shook his head at the nurse; she knew instantly that he had died.

Meanwhile a police press release issued yesterday stated that investigations are continuing into a “hit-and-run fatal accident that occurred about 7.15 pm on Saturday.

The release further stated that their investigations revealed that Seegobin was pushing a bicycle along the southern side of the roadway when he was allegedly struck down by the driver of a motor vehicle who drove away from the scene. He was taken to the GPHC where he was pronounced dead. Besides his father and sister already mentioned; Seegobin leaves to mourn his daughter Kimberly, mother Latchmin, a brother and another sister. (Melissa Charles)