Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Rel­a­tives of two women — both named Su­san — who were killed in a car ac­ci­dent in the Unit­ed States over the week­end, have launched a Go­FundMe cam­paign to re­turn their bod­ies to the Caribbean.

Ac­cord­ing to Fox31 News, around 10 pm on Sun­day, of­fi­cers from the Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice re­spond­ed to a crash at East Smoky Hill Road and South Wa­co Street.

The vic­tims were iden­ti­fied as Su­san Bai­ley, 60, of Ari­ma, and her daugh­ter-in-law Su­san Gaymes, 41, of Aran­juez.

Po­lice said the women were walk­ing when they were struck by a ve­hi­cle. Gaymes died at the scene, while Bai­ley — who had a leg am­pu­tat­ed — died lat­er at hos­pi­tal.

Bai­ley’s daugh­ter, Stephanie Paul, told Guardian Me­dia that her moth­er and sis­ter-in-law were in the US on va­ca­tion and for Bai­ley to re­ceive med­ical treat­ment. They were sched­uled to re­turn to T&T in De­cem­ber.

Both women worked in the health sec­tor — Gaymes, a Vin­cent­ian na­tion­al, was a nurse, while Bai­ley was em­ployed as a hos­pi­tal at­ten­dant.

Paul de­scribed the pair as in­sep­a­ra­ble.

“They were close. They both have the same names. They car­ry the same horo­scope. They were al­ways in touch with one an­oth­er,” she said. “My mom was very ad­ven­tur­ous and out­go­ing, and my sis­ter-in-law car­ried the same en­er­gy. They were al­most like one.”

Asked how her broth­er was cop­ing with the loss of both his wife and moth­er, Paul said the en­tire fam­i­ly has been on an emo­tion­al roller­coast­er.

“One mo­ment you’re calm, and then when you start to re­think every­thing again, you break down. You’re try­ing to do every­thing at the same time and still keep a sane mind.”

Paul said the dri­ver in­volved in the crash may have been speed­ing and was al­leged­ly dri­ving with­out head­lights at the time. Au­thor­i­ties have in­di­cat­ed that charges are pend­ing.

Bai­ley was a moth­er of three, aged 27 to 41, while Gaymes had five chil­dren rang­ing in ages from one to 20.

Ac­cord­ing to Bai­ley’s Go­FundMe page, the cost of re­turn­ing her body to T&T is US$1,600. As of yes­ter­day, the cam­paign had re­ceived three do­na­tions to­talling US$175.

In her ap­peal, or­gan­is­er Karen Belfast wrote:

“Good evening, my name is Karen, and I am re­quest­ing your help in aid of a good friend who was struck by a mo­torist. She suc­cumbed to her in­juries and passed away on Mon­day morn­ing in Den­ver.

“Su­san is from Trinidad and To­ba­go. She was a moth­er, a grand­moth­er, and a friend to many. Please find it in your heart to as­sist in help­ing her fam­i­ly get her re­mains home so they can lay her to rest.”

Those wish­ing to as­sist can con­tribute via the Go­FundMe page: https://go­fund.me/f29060ce5