CemeteryRoad bridge for repairs

The Ministry of Public Works is expected to start repair work on the bridge at Cemetery Road, La Penitence, where two cars plunged overboard over the past few days, resulting in one fatality.

The Ministry has started dumping road building materials on the bridge and is expected to begin works soon.

Elbert Thorne

However, efforts to get a comment from Minister Robeson Benn about how soon works will begin were unsuccessful yesterday.

The action by the Ministry came after residents expressed their outrage at the deplorable state of the bridge, from where a car plunged into the Sussex Street Canal on Saturday last. Sometime around 7pm, the driver of motor car HB 3878 lost control of his vehicle and ended up in the canal. The driver, Sherwin Aaron, 37, of Da Silva Street, Newtown, Kitty had two passengers, Alma Thorne and her 16-year-old son Elbert Thorne, both of Lot 181 Grove Housing Scheme. The elder Thorne and Aaron survived the ordeal but younger Thorne was trapped under the water for some time and never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at the Georgetown Public Hospital a few hours later.

According to a police official, Aaron, who was a patient at the Georgetown Hospital, was discharged from the institution yesterday and was placed on station bail.

La Penitence residents said that the bridge has been in a deplorable state for a very long time and has caused numerous accidents but the authorities never made an attempt to rectify the flaws.