RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two peo­ple lost their lives in sep­a­rate road traf­fic ac­ci­dents with­in 12 hours, with the lat­est crash oc­cur­ring near the San­ta Philli­pa Bridge along the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The lat­est vic­tim was iden­ti­fied as 42-year-old Ja­son Ram­nanan of Ca­paro, who died af­ter the pan­el van he was dri­ving col­lid­ed with a waste dis­pos­al truck short­ly af­ter 9 am.

Ram­nanan’s death came hours af­ter an uniden­ti­fied man be­lieved to be home­less was fa­tal­ly struck by an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle along the south­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near Home and Be­yond on Fri­day night.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ram­nanan’s sis­ter, Aman­da, de­scribed him as a kind-heart­ed man who was deeply loved by his fam­i­ly and every­one who knew him.

“Ja­son was the most loved in­di­vid­ual and the most car­ing boy, if you ever met him, and he had his whole life ahead of him still,” she said.

Aman­da said her broth­er had cel­e­brat­ed his 42nd birth­day on Jan­u­ary 15 and had been re­turn­ing home af­ter vis­it­ing their grand­par­ents, who live in the Ca­paro area.

His sud­den death, she said, has left rel­a­tives strug­gling to come to terms with the tragedy.

A res­i­dent claimed on­go­ing road­works close to the bridge had cre­at­ed a haz­ard for mo­torists.

“There is a bar­ri­cade around the hole on the pave­ment, so usu­al­ly when you come around the cor­ner, you can­not see where the break in the pave­ment. There is a big hole,” the res­i­dent said.

The res­i­dent added that an­oth­er truck had re­port­ed­ly left the road­way in the same area about a week ear­li­er.

He said the waste dis­pos­al truck in­volved in yes­ter­day’s crash had al­ready crossed the nar­row bridge and had the right of way, while Ram­nanan’s pan­el van end­ed up on the left side of the road­way af­ter the col­li­sion.

Mean­while, po­lice are al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing Fri­day night’s fa­tal ac­ci­dent along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to the scene short­ly af­ter 9.40 pm near Home and Be­yond on the south­bound car­riage­way.

When they ar­rived, they found a black Toy­ota Corol­la, an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle, stopped in the cen­tre lane with ex­ten­sive dam­age to its front bon­net, bumper, grille, head­lights, wind­screen and roof.

Of­fi­cers al­so dis­cov­ered the body of a slim-built man of East In­di­an de­scent ly­ing in the right lane of the high­way. The vic­tim had sus­tained cat­a­stroph­ic in­juries, in­clud­ing the sev­er­ing of his right foot, which was found sev­er­al feet away.

The vic­tim has not yet been for­mal­ly iden­ti­fied, al­though in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve he may have been home­less.

Po­lice in­ter­viewed the dri­ver, a 28-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment’s Crime Re­sponse Unit, who told in­ves­ti­ga­tors he was on ex­er­cise du­ty and pro­ceed­ing south when “a fig­ure ap­peared” in front of his ve­hi­cle.

The of­fi­cer said he was un­able to stop abrupt­ly and struck the pedes­tri­an. His ve­hi­cle even­tu­al­ly came to a halt, af­ter which he ex­it­ed and dis­cov­ered the man ly­ing mo­tion­less on the road­way.

The po­lice of­fi­cer re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion from am­bu­lance per­son­nel at the scene.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to both fa­tal ac­ci­dents are con­tin­u­ing.