Derek Achong

Act­ing Chief Jus­tice Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion with head trau­ma and in­ter­nal bleed­ing af­ter an ear­ly morn­ing car crash in Trinci­ty which claimed the lives of four par­ty­go­ers. Up to late yes­ter­day, Kan­ga­loo, 56, of West­moor­ings, re­mained in the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, drift­ing in and out of con­scious­ness.

Jones P Madeira, court pro­to­col and in­for­ma­tion man­ag­er, said the act­ing CJ un­der­went emer­gency surgery yes­ter­day morn­ing and was trans­ferred to the In­ten­sive Care Unit where 24-hour mon­i­tor­ing fa­cil­i­ties had been set up. Doc­tors were up to late yes­ter­day con­tin­u­ing cru­cial post op­er­a­tive care in their ef­forts to sta­bilise him.

At around 5.30 am, Kan­ga­loo was trav­el­ling east along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way when his black Toy­ota Pra­do SUV col­lid­ed with a white Hon­da Civic at the Or­ange Grove in­ter­sec­tion. The oc­cu­pants of the oth­er ve­hi­cle-Roy Ramtha­hal, 25, of In­dus­try Lane, Bel­mont; Jevon Spencer, 22, an em­ploy­ee of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, of Willis Street, Bel­mont; Je­re­mie John, 24, of St James, and an uniden­ti­fied fe­male friend-all died at the scene.

They were re­turn­ing home from the open­ing of Club Sta­tus (for­mer­ly the Liv­ing Room Night­club) in Ari­ma, at the time of the ac­ci­dent. Kan­ga­loo, a horse rac­ing en­thu­si­ast, was on his way to the Ari­ma Race Club at San­ta Rosa. Trav­el­ling with the judge were two po­lice­men, PCs Mar­tin Cae­sar and Ter­rence For­tune, who had been as­signed as Kan­ga­loo's se­cu­ri­ty de­tail dur­ing his stint as act­ing Chief Jus­tice. They suf­fered mi­nor in­juries in the crash.

Cae­sar, who is as­signed to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, was dri­ving Kan­ga­loo's ve­hi­cle, while For­tune, a Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cer, was the front seat pas­sen­ger. The wreck­ages of both ve­hi­cles were towed to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion where they will re­main im­pound­ed un­til the po­lice com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the fa­tal crash.

Kan­ga­loo was vis­it­ed at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day by act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, rel­a­tives and fel­low judges. Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to T&T late yes­ter­day evening af­ter an over­seas trip, a re­lease from the Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Of­fice said. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ter­ry Young and In­spec­tor David of the North­ern Di­vi­sion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ac­ci­dent.