A mother of seven and a teenage boy are dead, while three other persons are nursing serious injuries after a car crashed into a fence at Number 46 Village, Corentyne yesterday morning.
Dead are Paula Kissoondial, 53, and Akeem Harry, 15, both of Rose Hall Town, while those injured are Keith Ross, 27, Winston Collins, 24, and Jermaine Smartt also of Rose Hall. Collins is the son of Kissoondial.
Stabroek News was told that the accident occurred around 11.30am, as the vehicle in which the five persons were travelling, PRR 164 was navigating a turn along the Number 46 Village Public Road. A spare tyre that had been fitted on the vehicle apparently blew off, resulting in the driver losing control of the car. The car subsequently flew across a trench, then slammed into the fence of a residential yard and landed on the bridge.
Residents in the area reported that the driver appeared to have been speeding at the time of the accident.
According to first responders, after the car landed on the bridge, they had to elevate it in an uneven position to rescue the survivors. They noted they had to cut the seat belts off of the driver and the occupant of the front passenger seat. Both Kissoondial and Harry had been seated in the rear passenger seat.
Stabroek News was told that Kissoondial died on the spot, while Harry succumbed at the Skeldon Public Hospital, where he and the other injured persons had been rushed by public-spirited citizens. The injured were later transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Smartt sustained a concussion and a fracture in his left arm, while Collins also sustained a concussion as well as a dislocated clavicle. Ross, who sustained a fractured spinal cord, was subsequently transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The family of Kissoondial said she and the others had gone to drop off one of her sons at the Canawaima Ferry Stelling and she was returning home when the accident occurred.
Meanwhile, Harry’s grieving mother said she didn’t know of his accident until late in the afternoon. “I saw him morning time, and after that I didn’t see him back for the day. I kept asking for him but nobody told me anything,” she said while trying to hold back tears. She explained that in her last conversation with her son, who was a labourer, he told her he would be going to work.
The accident occurred just days into the start of National Road Safety Month. The Guyana Police Force Traffic Department yesterday urged all motorists to engage in defensive driving, which it said is aimed at reducing the risk of collision by anticipating dangerous situations. The theme for this year’s observations is “Be wise, stay alive, stop speeding, don’t drink and drive.”
