Geisha Kow­lessar

Box­ing cham­pi­on Jizelle Sa­landy had a promis­ing fu­ture. But, as fate would have it, Sa­landy met a trag­ic demise when she suc­cumbed to mas­sive head and in­ter­nal in­juries, af­ter an ac­ci­dent ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. Sa­landy, who held sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al box­ing ti­tles, would have turned 22 on Jan­u­ary 25. Na­tion­al foot­baller Tama­ra Wat­son, who was in the front pas­sen­ger seat of Sa­landy's car, was up to late yes­ter­day list­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Sa­landy's death came on the heels of a col­li­sion in­volv­ing Olympic dou­ble sil­ver medal­list Richard Thomp­son. The 100-me­tre run­ner-up and Monique Cabral, a mem­ber of the T&T team in Bei­jing, were in­volved in a col­li­sion on New Year's Day. Sa­landy, a Fyz­abad lass, may have fall­en asleep at the wheel, po­lice be­lieve. They said Sa­landy had just dropped off a friend at Pi­ar­co and was head­ing back to her camp in north Trinidad around 6.53 am. Ac­cord­ing to As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (ACP Traf­fic) Fitzroy Fred­er­ick, the sport­ing star was dri­ving a black Toy­ota Yaris, PCH 6169.

Fred­er­ick said that up­on reach­ing vicin­i­ty of the NP over­pass at Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, Sa­landy hit a cul­vert and smashed head-on in­to a con­crete pil­lar, dubbed the killer pil­lar. Peo­ple who fell vic­tims to that pil­lar in the past in­clud­ed Ram Kir­palani and chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer Joseph Bod­kyn. Mem­bers of the Emer­gency Health Ser­vices (EHS) ar­rived prompt­ly and pulled out a blood­ied Sa­landy who was still con­scious. She was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, but died around 8.29 am, while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery.

Wat­son suf­fered two bro­ken legs and in­ter­nal in­juries, hos­pi­tal sources said. Fred­er­ick said there was no in­di­ca­tion that al­co­hol might have been a fac­tor in the ac­ci­dent. "There was noth­ing to sug­gest she (Sa­landy) col­lid­ed with any­thing be­fore crash­ing in­to the pil­lar," he said. "There was al­so noth­ing to sug­gest she may have been drink­ing. "There is the prob­a­bil­i­ty she fell asleep or she lost con­trol of the ve­hi­cle," Fred­er­ick said. Com­ment­ing that Sa­landy's death had brought the road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure to two for the year to date, the se­nior cop is­sued an­oth­er ap­peal to mo­torist to be vig­i­lant.

"It would seem our na­tion­al he­roes need to re-eval­u­ate their safe­ty and con­trol while on the na­tion's roads, so that the so­ci­ety can ben­e­fit from their tal­ent and abil­i­ty," Fred­er­ick said. He al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences on be­half of act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert. "Our great­est ap­peal for the new year is for dri­vers to re­duce their speed, par­tic­u­lar­ly with young peo­ple," he added. Vis­it­ing the scene were of­fi­cers of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, head­ed by Sgt Sa­hadeo Singh.