Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

An­tho­ny Har­ris, a free­lance sports pho­tog­ra­ph­er with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML), is ward­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing a hit-and-run ac­ci­dent around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Har­ris was struck by a white Nis­san B13 while he and his friends were cy­cling around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah near Pres­i­dent’s House. The ve­hi­cle did not stop.

Har­ris, who suf­fered in­juries to his body and head, un­der­went surgery for his in­juries and was up to late yes­ter­day fight­ing for his life in the hos­pi­tal’s in­ten­sive care unit.

Of­fi­cers of the Bel­mont Po­lice sta­tion are search­ing for the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle and hope to se­cure CCTV footage from the ac­ci­dent scene to as­sist in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Har­ris’s daugh­ter, Charisse, said he is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and in need of blood.

“His blood pres­sure is low so they are try­ing to sta­bi­lize that. His lung col­lapsed. Things have tak­en a turn for the worse,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

“He was rid­ing his bike. As every­one knows he rides and he saw the car com­ing. The oth­er peo­ple he was rid­ing with, he told them to go to the side, and when he was pro­ceed­ing to go to the side the car ploughed straight in­to him. He flew up in the air and went back down.”

She ap­pealed to the mo­torist who struck her fa­ther to turn him­self in to the po­lice.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion, Rowe­na Williams al­so called for the dri­ver to go to the po­lice and re­port what hap­pened.

“This morn­ing we had a ca­su­al cy­clist tak­ing his nor­mal well­ness and fit­ness ride around the Sa­van­nah. We had a ca­su­al rid­er this morn­ing us­ing that lane and be­ing hit by a ve­hi­cle from be­hind and not even hav­ing the cour­tesy to see if this cy­clist was okay,” she said.

“At this time the en­tire cy­clist fra­ter­ni­ty is pret­ty up­set and dis­grun­tled that mo­torists are still not ad­her­ing to the laws of the land and al­so the safe­ty of all. We are no longer a car­ing peo­ple. The Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion ap­peals to the dri­ver to come for­ward and show some lev­el of care. An­tho­ny is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.”

Al­so ex­press­ing con­cern yes­ter­day were mem­bers of the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty. Ap­peals were made through the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) for blood donors

In March 2015, the in­side lane (clos­est to the Sa­van­nah) was des­ig­nat­ed for use by cy­clists be­tween the hours of 4 am to 6 am and 8.30 pm to 10.30 pm Mon­days to Fri­days and 5 am to 9 am on week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days.

Har­ris was knocked down with­in the des­ig­nat­ed time that cy­clists are al­lowed to use that lane.

There have been con­cerns about the safe­ty of cy­clists on the na­tion’s road­ways due to the num­ber of ac­ci­dents in which they have been in­volved.

In No­vem­ber 2018, renowned chef Joe Brown and bpTT man­ag­er Joan­na Banks were killed when a car ploughed in­to a group of 14 cy­clists along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way op­po­site the Beetham Land­fill. At the time of that ac­ci­dent, Brown and Banks were part of a Slip­stream Cy­cling Club team tak­ing part in a reg­u­lar Sat­ur­day morn­ing train­ing ride to east Trinidad.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are al­so tak­ing place in­to an­oth­er ac­ci­dent ear­li­er on Sat­ur­day in which a pedes­tri­an was killed. Makhail Philbert, 35, was fa­tal­ly struck by a car on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in Barataria at about 1.05 am. A po­lice of­fi­cer was dri­ving his red Nis­san Sen­tra west along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in the vicin­i­ty of 8th Av­enue, when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred. Philbert was flung sev­er­al feet in the air be­fore land­ing on the south­ern side of the road. He died at the scene.