Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go ac­ci­dent sur­vivor Thomas Orr says the car that struck him did so with such force that it spun his ve­hi­cle, broke a guardrail, and sent him and his wife, Mar­jorie Har­ry Orr, plung­ing in­to the Rich­mond Riv­er. She did not sur­vive. He es­caped with bare­ly a scratch.

Now, Orr is ask­ing the oth­er dri­ver to speak the truth.

“All I have is her mem­o­ry, and I’m not go­ing to soil it by cast­ing blame,” Orr told Guardian Me­dia in a phone in­ter­view. “We just want the truth, that’s all.”

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around 8.35 am on Sat­ur­day, Orr, 78, was dri­ving south along Rich­mond Or­chard Dri­ve with his wife in the front pas­sen­ger seat when they reached the in­ter­sec­tion with Wind­ward Road. The re­port stat­ed that Orr’s ve­hi­cle stopped to al­low an­oth­er car, dri­ven by 30-year-old Kyle Phillips, to pro­ceed. Both dri­vers then at­tempt­ed to move off at the same time, re­sult­ing in a col­li­sion that sent Orr’s car plung­ing 30 feet in­to the Rich­mond Riv­er.

By­standers pulled the cou­ple from the sub­merged ve­hi­cle and rushed them to Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, where Mar­jorie Orr was pro­nounced dead.

Orr, still in To­ba­go and sur­round­ed by griev­ing rel­a­tives and mem­bers of his wife’s church, Ju­dah Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church, dis­putes the of­fi­cial ver­sion of events.

“At no time did I stop,” he said. “If both of us were dri­ving and stopped, and both moved off at the same time, would there re­al­ly be that kind of force of im­pact? Does that make sense?”

He re­called see­ing “just a patch of gold” as the oth­er ve­hi­cle came quick­ly down a hill while he was turn­ing across Rich­mond Or­chard Dri­ve.

“I didn’t have time to stop,” he said. “The car hit me, spun me around, broke the rail, and lin­gered a lit­tle be­fore go­ing over.”

Once in the wa­ter, Orr tried to un­buck­le his seat­belt and free his wife. Passers-by jumped in to help and man­aged to pull them both from the sink­ing car, but Mar­jorie was un­re­spon­sive.

She was more than his wife of 55 years—she was a moth­er, grand­moth­er, and spir­i­tu­al leader.

“She has been my rock, my every­thing,” Orr said. “She was kind-heart­ed… good with every­body. She was an an­gel—at least she was my an­gel. I have lost her.”

The tragedy struck on the birth­day of her youngest grand­child.

“She didn’t even get to cel­e­brate with her,” Orr said.

De­spite his grief, he says he would meet the oth­er dri­ver.

“I would not re­ject them. Ac­ci­dents do hap­pen. I’ve suf­fered loss—but at the end of it all, life goes on,” he said.

Still, he be­lieves the pub­lic de­serves hon­esty.

“What is be­ing said in the me­dia does not make sense,” he said. “We can’t bring back Margie, but wrong is wrong.”

The cou­ple had trav­elled to To­ba­go for a church out­ing over the long week­end and to cel­e­brate the birth­days of church mem­bers. At the time of the crash, they were on their way to a prayer event.

Now, Orr says, faith will car­ry him through.

“I will bless the Lord at all times,” he said. “This has thrown a damper, but with the sup­port of my peo­ple, I’m go­ing to ne­go­ti­ate through this.”