The victim of Sunday morning’s fatal accident along the Annandale, East Coast Demerara (ECD) Public Road has been identified as 16-year-old Mashane Thomas, of the neighbouring Buxton village.
Thomas, a student of Bladen Hall Multilateral School and of Lot 81 Middle Walk, Buxton, was said to have been in the tray of a canter truck, GHH 3986, when he attempted to disembark but fell.
As a result, the wheel of the canter reportedly ran over him, resulting in his death.
He was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The accident occurred around 3.20 am, after which the driver, a 50-year-old resident of Paradise, ECD, was taken into custody.
Contacted yesterday, Mashane’s sister, Mitera Thomas, told this newspaper that his death has left the family in a state of shock.
She said Mashane was preparing the sit Caribbean Secondary Education Certifi-cate (CSEC) examinations in the next two months.
Mitera explained that she last saw her brother alive on Saturday night, when he left home after receiving permission for his mother to attend a football game in the area.
“He (Mashane) ask her to go play football and she allow him,” Mitera said.
However, she explained that as time passed by and Mashane did not return him, they started to get worried and began to ask his friends about his whereabouts.
“So as time goes by, she (their mother) start asking friends, where he is, where he deh and the same friend that actually left and go with him, actually come home and she, ‘Oh Mashane come home already and bathe and thing.’ And she was like, ‘No I was now coming by you to find out about his whereabouts’,” Mitera recalled.
Mitera said Mashane did not have a cellular phone so they couldn’t have called him.
It was until early Sunday morning, when his mother was scrolling Facebook, that she saw a video of an accident. “Her words was like, ‘Oh my God. Another parent is going to be crying this morning,’ not knowing is her own son,” Mitera said.
“You know anything to do with accidents is going to be bloody. So most persons don’t look at the stuff. So all now she never look at the video. I was the one that actually look at it. My brother looked at it,” she added.
She said it was after looking at the video that she confirmed that the victim was indeed her brother.
An uncle yesterday morning positively identified the corpse as Mashane.
“I am just hearing that he (Mashane) was on the canter top and he keep banging, banging for it to stop… And he keep banging, banging and banging and the man (driver) would not stop, so he like he tell he self that he getting carried away now, so probably I don’t know if is fall he fall out or he jump out. I don’t know or God knows and that was the end of it,” Mitera explained.
She said the family is calling for justice.
A post-mortem examination yesterday showed that Mashane died as a result of multiple injuries.
