An ear­ly morn­ing crash yes­ter­day along the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way claimed the life of a prison of­fi­cer, Pris­ons Of­fi­cer II, Richard Ali.

The ac­ci­dent oc­curred on the south­bound lane near Freeport on the high­way some­time af­ter 2 am. 

Po­lice said Ali was dri­ving his Mit­subishi Lancer when it col­lid­ed with a trail­er truck parked off the high­way dis­play­ing a road traf­fic sign. Heavy rain­fall at the time and a wet road, po­lice said, are be­lieved to have con­tributed to the crash.

Emer­gency ser­vices, in­clud­ing fire of­fi­cers, re­spond­ed prompt­ly and used the jaws of life to re­move Ali from the man­gled ve­hi­cle. De­spite their ef­forts, Ali suc­cumbed to his in­juries and was pro­nounced dead on the scene.

Po­lice said the fa­tal crash oc­curred near a stretch of high­way where the Min­istry of Works has been in­stalling crash bar­ri­ers. Since No­vem­ber 11, warn­ing signs have been placed along the road­way to alert dri­vers of on­go­ing work be­tween 9 pm and 4 am. The project is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in De­cem­ber.

Ali, who lived at Ho­sein Street, Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia, was de­scribed as a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer in the prison ser­vice. 

He was re­mem­bered by Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh as the son of Ni­rawa­tee “Chi­nee” Ali, a strong ac­tivist and sup­port­er of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. He was al­so the fa­ther of one and was mar­ried to Usha Sankar.

In­dars­ingh yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to Ali say­ing that he will al­ways be re­mem­bered by those who knew him and will for­ev­er be missed.

Quot­ing Ralph Wal­do Emer­son, In­dars­ingh said, “What lies be­hind you and what lies in front of you, pales in com­par­i­son to what lies in­side of you.”