A minibus driver last evening suffered at the hands of angry Albouystown residents after he lost control of the vehicle and it ripped away the front of one house, the entire eastern side of another and seriously injured a four-year- old child.
Before all this damage, the vehicle, a route 40, bright yellow Kitty/ Campbellville bus, PGG 4476 also hit a motor cycle, then a car and then went speeding onto a bridge before slamming into the houses one after the other.
Little Kywan Harvey was playing outside the door of his home just after 6 yesterday with his siblings and other neighbourhood children, when the vehicle picked him up, headed for a nearby drain and pinned him under the vehicle.
When Stabroek News visited the scene last evening, dozens of residents were on the street and looking at the damaged building in amazement. The child had already been rushed to the hospital.
Speaking with this newspaper the child’s grandmother Oreta Harvey said she had just turned on her television to catch the nightly news and her door was open and the children were playing as they usually did.
“All I hear is this loud crash and next thing I hear is that my grandchild was under the vehicle and my son ran to the bus and was trying to get him from under there,” the visibly shaken women said.
She said at that time residents started to help and they managed to turn the vehicle on its side to take the child from under the vehicle.
“He was not moving and his mother started crying and so his father get nervous and he started to shake him and he wasn’t moving and so we decided to rush him to the hospital,” she added.
Another relative on the scene said she saw the bus pass earlier in the afternoon at high speed.
She said about half an hour after, she saw the bus coming faster and the next thing she saw were children scampering for safety but Kywan was backing the road and could not see the bus coming and so he was lifted by the front of the bus and dragged as it crashed.
The driver of the vehicle received a sound thrashing from residents who were determined that they were not giving him up to anyone but the police.
This newspaper learnt from residents that the driver was stuck in the bus and attempts were made to leave him there but one man insisted that the man be beaten.
One resident said that when the man was taken from the vehicle he was reeking of alcohol. Residents however handed the man over to the police who rushed him to the Georgetown Public hospital
Mother’s fear
While Stabroek News was still on the scene of the accident, the mother of the child, Patricia Blackman, returned with Kywan in her hands and with his hands bandaged.
She recounted the incident and the visibly distraught mother said while the child had received treatment at the hospital she was very uneasy since he was slipping in and out of consciousness.
The child was groaning and following urging from residents who flooded the woman’s home, the child was returned to the hospital and was admitted.
But all was not over as the police crash truck came to tow away the vehicle and this compounded the damage.
The officer connected the tow chains to the vehicle and this, too, sent residents scampering. However the truck was eventually able to successfully tow away what was left of the vehicle.
Police sources on the scene also confirmed that the vehicle was completely stripped and a few residents were seen leaving the scene with parts of the vehicle.
Lights, the tape deck and all the other fineries in the minibus were missing and so police only took away a shell and seats.
Even the windscreens, both front and back, and all the mirrors were missing.
The four-year-old child was however reported to be in a stable condition and is now a patient in the Children’s Ward of the Georgetown Hospital.
