A 40-year-old mechanic died on the spot yesterday after he was struck by a speeding minibus while riding a Yamaha motorbike along Aubrey Barker Road, South Ruimveldt.
Dead is Patrice Welcome, called `Mitch’, of Lot M11-1058 Critchlow Street Tucville and of Cane View Avenue, South Ruimveldt, George-town. According to reports, at sometime after nine yesterday morning, Welcome was heading east on Aubrey Barker, on his way to work in Tucville, when a Route 41 minibus, BNN 9334, which was heading in the opposite direction, overtook another vehicle and collided with the bike Welcome was riding.
When this newspaper arrived on the scene, the minibus was parked some fifty feet away from the spot where Welcome lay. The motorcycle, CG 197, which Welcome had borrowed from a friend on Monday night, was lying a few yards from his body. Eyewitnesses related that the bus was going at such a fast rate that after hitting the motorcyclist, it took the driver a while to come to a complete halt.
According to the dead man’s father David Welcome, he was made to understand that the bus contained passengers, including school children, and following the accident, only one of these passengers stepped forward to testify against the bus driver. The passenger, he stated, related that the driver had been speeding and was signalled by the driver of a car, that was proceeding in front of the bus, to slow down because Welcome was coming in the opposite direction. The driver of the bus however, paid no heed to the warning and this resulted in the mechanic’s death. The senior Welcome added also that other passengers from the bus contradicted the first passenger’s account, and stated that Welcome was speeding.
More than two hours passed before the mechanic’s body, which had been lying on the road in the scorching sun, was finally lifted into the back of a police pickup and taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), preceded by an ambulance. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
Apart from his father, Welcome leaves to mourn his mother; who resides overseas, an adoptive mother, his siblings, his six children, his fiancée, and numerous neighbours and friends. Many relatives were on the scene shedding tears for their loved one. He was praised by many for being a kind and generous man and a very skilful mechanic.
The driver of the minibus is in police custody assisting with investigations.
