KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“God, why didn’t you take me? Why you take my child? Life is so un­fair some­times,” cried Win­ston Williams as he mourned his son, Arvin, who died in­stant­ly af­ter his ve­hi­cle plunged in­to the Cipero Riv­er yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The grief-strick­en fa­ther of three, Re­gion­al CEO of Pan-Amer­i­can Life In­sur­ance Group in the Caribbean, is urg­ing young peo­ple to stay fo­cused on the road and avoid dis­trac­tions such as al­co­hol and mo­bile phones.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Arvin, 32, of San Fer­nan­do, was dri­ving his Nis­san Fron­tier north along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way around 2 am when the pick­up crashed in­to a bridge near the Corinth in­ter­change and plunged in­to the riv­er.

When of­fi­cers ar­rived, the man was par­tial­ly vis­i­ble in­side the man­gled ve­hi­cle and un­re­spon­sive. Fire­fight­ers from Mon Re­pos used the jaws of life to re­move him.

Arvin’s death came just three days be­fore his 33rd birth­day cel­e­bra­tion at Dim Sum King in Trinci­ty and af­ter the deaths of Sachin Teeluck­d­har­ry and Ryan Ram­nanan, who died in a sim­i­lar ac­ci­dent at the same spot last year.

Williams said his son had been re­turn­ing home af­ter drop­ping a friend in Gol­con­da. Their last con­ver­sa­tion was Fri­day night, when Arvin men­tioned go­ing bowl­ing with friends at C3 Cen­tre in Ste Madeleine. He promised to be home by 11 pm, lat­er up­dat­ing his fa­ther about a pre-birth­day gath­er­ing, ex­pect­ing to re­turn by 1 am. When he didn’t re­turn, Williams called re­peat­ed­ly with no an­swer.

“At around six o’clock, I called again and some­body an­swered the phone, and the guy said, ‘This is Cpl Chadee from the Ste Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion’. I said: ‘Po­lice sta­tion? What hap­pened?’ He said, ‘I think you’d bet­ter come down here,’” Williams re­called.

At the sta­tion, of­fi­cers re­vealed the wreck of Arvin’s pick­up.

“I am telling you guys, no par­ent should bury their child. This is wrong, every­thing is wrong about this. This is not sup­posed to hap­pen,” Williams said.

De­scribed as calm and easy-go­ing, Arvin worked at Safe Tech man­ag­ing fire sys­tem in­stal­la­tions and had re­cent­ly en­rolled in a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion course. His step­moth­er, Cook­ie Williams, said fam­i­ly was every­thing to him, and that friends were trau­ma­tised by his death.

Williams be­lieves al­co­hol or fa­tigue may have con­tributed to the crash and urged young peo­ple to fo­cus while dri­ving.

“You are not dri­ving for your­self; you are dri­ving with oth­er dri­vers on the road. Drink­ing and be­ing on your cell phone—those are two ma­jor dis­trac­tions,” he said.

He stressed the im­por­tance of des­ig­nat­ed dri­vers and look­ing out for one an­oth­er to pre­vent such tragedies. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the gov­ern­ment’s role in high­way safe­ty, Williams not­ed that many mo­torists trav­el the stretch safe­ly de­spite bro­ken bar­ri­ers.

Po­lice ad­vised the fam­i­ly not to vis­it the crash site, and rel­a­tives dis­cour­aged view­ing Arvin’s body due to its con­di­tion.

“I do not think I want to see my son like that, for my last mem­o­ry to be that,” Williams said qui­et­ly.