Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
Seconds before her family’s vehicle crashed head-on into a cement truck in Debe, 24-year-old Simran Rahamut decided to make the ultimate sacrifice to shield her 16-month-old son with her body. The young mother died at the scene. Her last act was to ensure that her baby survived.
Relatives said yesterday that the toddler and Rahamut’s mother Amida, 46, were in stable condition. But her father, Afraz, 50, was unresponsive at the Intensive Care Unit of the San Fernando General Hospital.
Rahamut’s parents had picked her up from work at SM Jaleel Company in Otaheite where she worked as a customer service representative and was heading home.
A police report stated that around 5.30 pm on Thursday, Rahamut was in the back seat of the family’s blue Honda Airwave hatchback, along with her son who was in a booster seat. They were proceeding east along M2 Ring Road. It is alleged the father overtook a line of traffic and collided with a Mack cement truck proceeding in the opposite direction.
The hatchback swerved off the road into the drain on the northern side near Debe Secondary School. Rahamut died at the scene while firefighters used the Jaws of Life to free her father from the mangled wreck.
Speaking at the family’s Penal home yesterday, Rahamut’s elder sister Kadeejah Mohammed said her parents carried her nephew for the drive because her sister liked to see him when she finished work.
Their father also worked at SM Jaleel but he did not go to work that day. She recalled receiving a frantic call from her mother saying they had been in an accident. Her mother and nephew were in the ambulance, her sister’s lifeless body was on the ground and her father was still in the vehicle.
Mohammed said she heard conflicting reports about how the accident occurred, but her sister protected her son.
“I heard my sister jumped to protect the baby from damage. She tried to shield him. The baby was in the car seat, on the rear seat on the left side. She threw her body on him. I heard they found her body under the seat,” she lamented.
Mohammed said she broke the news of her sister’s death to her mother while they were at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department.
“We waited until she was stable and I held her hand and said Simran did not make it. She was inconsolable. She said she wished it was she,” said Mohammed.
Describing her sister as a loving and caring person, Mohammed said Rahamut also tutored part-time primary school pupils.
“(Simran was) Working and building her life, seeing about her son. She had previously gone through a rough patch,” the sister said.