Woman, 81, killed in Houston collision

Eighty-one-year-old Daphne Layne’s journey to the Alexander Village Masjid ended fatally on Friday when the vehicle she was in was rammed by a minibus at Houston Public Road, East Bank Demerara.

The collision left Layne dead and two others who were in the car hospitalised. The drivers were in police custody up to yesterday morning. The minibus, which bore number plate PMM 3891, was reported to be a Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) vehicle.

The accident occurred at about 8:30AM on Friday and Layne was a passenger in the in front seat of the car at the time, according to a relative Loraine George.

The mangled remains of the car after the accident. Inset is Daphne Layne
The mangled remains of the car after the accident. Inset is Daphne Layne

Layne, who resided at 52 Banks Avenue, D’ Aguiar Park, sustained a broken hip and her entire face was disfigured from the injuries she sustained as she bore the blunt of the impact during the collision, George added.

She noted that Layne was very active and had no major illness except for high blood pressure.

At the scene of the accident on Friday, persons were seen trying to change the wheels on the bus in order to make it mobile again, while what was once the car sat at the corner of the road folded into a clump of metal. The occupants had already been taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation with the assistance of the fire service.

The driver of the car sustained minor injuries while another female passenger, Amanda Lam, 36, sustained two fractures to her jaw. Her son, Christopher Naipaul, 16, who was also in the vehicle, was scheduled to undergo surgery on Friday to remove a piece of glass which ended up in his throat as a result of the accident.

On her hospital bed, Lam lay with a swollen face as she spoke softly, while crying out for pain. All she recalled was that the car had just put off a passenger in a street and the driver was attempting to cross the public road when the collision occurred.

She said that driver had almost cleared the road when the speeding bus struck the rear of the car. “I really can’t remember exactly what happened but what I remember is that my son started screaming for me and then the bus slam the car… after that I woke up in the hospital,” Lam said.

Lam said yesterday that after she was seen by doctors when she was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Unit at the Georgetown Hospital, no other doctor checked on her condition. After she asked a nurse about the doctor, Lam said the nurse told her that the doctor was not answering his phone.

The mother said that she knew that her son was scheduled to undergo surgery but she had no idea as to what his condition was. Stabroek News was told by a nurse that Naipaul was still in the operating theatre.