RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

“My whole life gone.”

Those were the an­guished words of 65-year-old Gowkaran De­o­nanan as he wept open­ly for his wife of 45 years, Afros Lal­loo De­o­nanan, who was killed in a hit-and-run along Pe­nal Rock Road on Sat­ur­day night.

Clutch­ing his head and strug­gling to steady his voice while tears ran down his face, Gowkaran said the woman he had loved since their teenage years was tak­en from him in a mat­ter of sec­onds.

“I have noth­ing again. That was my life, my peace, my every­thing,” he cried. “I don’t want to hurt no­body… I just want jus­tice for my wife.”

Hours be­fore tragedy struck, the cou­ple had shared what he now de­scribes as a per­fect evening. They went to the beach, re­turned home and en­joyed a sim­ple bar­be­cue meal to­geth­er.

There was no hint it would be their last.

“She feed me, then she say she go­ing...to find out about church,” he re­called. “She leave to walk back home… on the side of the road like she al­ways does.”

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 8.05 pm, De­o­nanan was walk­ing in a souther­ly di­rec­tion along 6-Mile Pe­nal Rock Road, be­tween Hope Trace and Con­go Trace, when a white Isuzu van, trav­el­ling at a high speed veered to the ex­treme left and struck her. The im­pact killed her on the spot.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors say she was dragged along the road­way be­fore the ve­hi­cle sped off, leav­ing her body ly­ing mo­tion­less in the mid­dle of the road.

W/Cpl Vesprey David, along with oth­er of­fi­cers, re­spond­ed to the scene af­ter re­ceiv­ing a re­port from the Com­mand Cen­tre. Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians checked for vi­tal signs but found none.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Archee lat­er pro­nounced De­o­nanan dead at the scene. Her body was re­moved to the San Fer­nan­do Mor­tu­ary pend­ing a post-mortem.

Gowkaran said the pain of her un­time­ly death is com­pound­ed not on­ly by loss, but by what he de­scribed as a lack of hu­man­i­ty.

“They leave she there… no­body stop, no­body show re­spect. The dri­ver nev­er come to have a word with me,” he said, his voice break­ing.

He al­so claimed he has re­ceived threats since the in­ci­dent, adding to his dis­tress, but main­tained he wants no re­venge.

“I is a God-fear­ing man. I just kneel down and pray,” he said, point­ing sky­wards.

Mean­while, one of De­o­nanan’s friends who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said she is still haunt­ed by the mo­ment she wit­nessed the fa­tal col­li­sion.

“I stand up in the yard where I could see her,” the friend said. “She walk­ing prop­er­ly on the side of the road.”

Mo­ments lat­er, she no­ticed head­lights ap­proach­ing.

“I see this bright van light com­ing… and I say to my­self, ‘this van go­ing to hit this woman,’” she re­called. “By the time I say that, I just hear a loud noise.”

The wit­ness said the im­pact sent De­o­nanan’s body “fling­ing,” and she col­lapsed near a light pole. She rushed out, scream­ing, as Gowkaran al­so ran to­ward the scene.

“She died in­stant­ly… it hap­pened so fast,” the friend said, her voice shak­ing. “One minute you’re talk­ing to some­body, and the next minute they gone.”

She added that a Venezue­lan man, who rent­ed near the De­o­nanan fam­i­ly, ran to as­sist, but the dri­ver fled with­out stop­ping. Po­lice said the dri­ver of the van has sur­ren­dered and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.