To­ba­go po­lice are prob­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing an ac­ci­dent which claimed the lives of two men.

The head-on col­li­sion hap­pened short­ly af­ter 4 pm on Fri­day along the Claude Noel High­way near the Gulf City Mall in Low­lands and the dead men have been iden­ti­fied as Hec­tor Kennedy and David King.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the ac­ci­dent hap­pened on the shoul­der of the east­bound lane of the high­way.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, King, of Daniel Trace, Carn­bee, was dri­ving his car from east to west while Kennedy, of Union Vil­lage, was trav­el­ling in the op­po­site di­rec­tion in his pan­el van when the ve­hi­cles col­lid­ed.

A wrecker removes David King's car following an accident along the Claude Noel Highway in Tobago on Friday.

Casandra Thompson-Forbes

Fire­fight­ers had to use the ‘jaws of life’ to free both men from their ve­hi­cles.

Fire of­fi­cials said King was un­re­spon­sive when he was re­moved and rushed to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, but was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. Kennedy’s legs were man­gled as he suf­fered mul­ti­ple se­vere frac­tures to his low­er body. He suc­cumbed to his in­juries Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

A two-year-old tod­dler who was in King's ve­hi­cle es­caped un­hurt. Eye­wit­ness­es said he was found ly­ing on King's life­less body when fire­fight­ers cut through the car. The child is still ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal un­der ob­ser­va­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say they are un­sure of what caused the ac­ci­dent.

Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to remove David King and Hector Kennedy after their vehicles were involved in a head-on collision along the Claude Noel Highway on Friday.

How­ev­er, speak­ing at the scene Fri­day, Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer David Joseph-Thomas said, "There was no brake im­pres­sion at the scene. What this im­plies is that no one ap­plied brakes so both or one of the dri­vers might have been dis­tract­ed or un­aware of what was hap­pen­ing."

This is the sec­ond fa­tal ac­ci­dent on the Claude Noel High­way in less than a month. On Oc­to­ber 28, sol­dier McK­eon East­man, 31, al­so died when the ve­hi­cle he was dri­ving hit the guard rail­ing be¬tween All Fields Crown Trace and Gulf City Mall.