Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

While rel­a­tives of the truck dri­ver who died af­ter a tyre ex­plod­ed ac­cept his death was an ac­ci­dent, his loss has left them shat­tered.

Still in dis­be­lief, 78-year-old In­dra Ram­nar­ine, the moth­er of Rakesh Ram­nar­ine, cov­ered her face as she cried for her on­ly child yes­ter­day when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed his home where he lived with his moth­er and com­mon-law wife in Cap-de-Ville, Point Fortin. He had no chil­dren.

Ram­nar­ine, 38, an em­ploy­ee of Na­mal­co Group, was dri­ving a dump truck in San­gre Grande when he ex­pe­ri­enced me­chan­i­cal prob­lems on Mon­day. He stopped and went be­tween the back tyres to in­ves­ti­gate the prob­lem when one ex­plod­ed, throw­ing him un­der the truck.

Ram­nar­ine’s cousin Rishi Ma­haraj, who al­so works as a truck dri­ver for the same com­pa­ny, said his cousin start­ed work­ing with them less than a month ago.
He said his cousin had dropped off ma­te­r­i­al from Blan­chisseuse to a con­struc­tion site in Man­zanil­la and was re­turn­ing to Blan­chisseuse to col­lect an­oth­er load.

Ma­haraj said Ram­nar­ine had called his wife and told her he was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an air leak. He said his cousin stopped to check it be­cause a leak would af­fect the brakes.

“All the truck dri­vers in the whole of Trinidad do the same thing when we have to check. We will go be­tween the wheels, check the tyres, check what­ev­er and go about our busi­ness. It is the first time I ever saw a tyre ex­plode to that ex­tent.”

Not­ing that his cousin had ten years’ of ex­pe­ri­ence dri­ving trucks, he said tyre blowouts were com­mon, but usu­al­ly hap­pen while the truck is in mo­tion.

“It is a def­i­nite ac­ci­dent, for sure, be­cause I could be in the same sit­u­a­tion at any giv­en time. Some of the dan­gers that come with the job,” said Ma­haraj.

He ex­plained that a few days ago, the truck un­der­went a full ser­vice, in­clud­ing a com­plete brak­ing sys­tem, oil change and new tyres.

He said, “Air leaks are some­thing that could hap­pen any day.”

Un­able to con­tain her tears, Doolin Ma­haraj, 71, said Ram­nar­ine’s fa­ther died when he was 13 years.

His cousin Veen­ode Ma­haraj said, “He was one of the most self­less of the cousins, al­ways re­li­able. Ac­ci­dents do hap­pen. All we can do is live one day at a time and move on as best as we can.”

The fam­i­ly will fi­nalise fu­ner­al arrange­ments af­ter the au­top­sy.