Accident victim Sean Lallsingh yesterday said his friends, who were killed in a vehicular accident on Sunday in Chaguanas, could have been saved.
Kevin "Ketty" Frederick, of Chase Village, Chaguanas, and his girlfriend Britney Balroop, of Carapichaima, who was in the front passenger seat, were killed in the accident.
Lallsingh and Adrian Brown, who were in the vehicle's back seat, were taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where they were treated and discharged.
The friends were on their way to the Defence Force's Cars and Camouflage show at the Heliport in Chaguaramas when the accident occurred. According to reports, Frederick was driving his silver grey Nissan Almera along the northbound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway, near Biljah Road, when he crashed into a tree near to the Divali Nagar in Chaguanas. Frederick died within minutes of the accident and Balroop died hours later at hospital.
Lallsingh, 30, an electrician, said he tried to save his friend's life as he gasped for his last breath. He said that Frederick and Balroop were still alive when he went inside the car.
In a brief interview at his Bolai Trace, Chase Village, Chaguanas, home yesterday, Lallsingh recalled the incident that took the life of a friend he had known his entire life.
He sat down on his front step surrounded by his friends and neighbours who had come to wish him a speedy recovery. Most of his head was covered by a bandage that covered the main injury he sustained in the crash.
"Everybody was to meet at the square and then we would go together. We were going around a van. The van mash brakes and he pull around the van and the car pick up a skid and started to swerve," he said.
Lallsingh said the passengers in the vehicle knew they would crash and tried to brace themselves. He said he was "pitched out of the vehicle" and managed to make it back to the car, noting it was partially submerged in water in a drain which runs alongside the highway.
"The car was in the drain and when I went in his (Frederick) head was down in the car and she (Balroop) was breathing heavy. I heard him making a bubbling noise," he said.
Lallsingh said he spoke with his friends.
"I raised up his head out of the water and I told him he will come out of this to relax himself," he said.
He said he was approached by two men in plain clothing who identified themselves as fire-fighters.
"They told me to go and see about myself. I told them that the man will drown, that they needed to keep up his head. I turned around and see them doing (expletive) nothing. I tell him (fire-fighter) that he doing nothing and let the man drown. He might still be alive."
The T&T Fire Service's Chaguanas divisional base is a short distance away from where the accident occurred.
He added, "We grew up together. The man could have survived still."
Lallsingh said he was given antibiotics to take during his recovery.
Friends said Brown was at home yesterday "still in shock" after the incident.
Contacted on Lallsingh's claim yesterday, acting Chief Fire Officer Roosevelt Bruce said he not sure if the men who turned up at the scene early on were indeed fire-fighters.
"We don't have officers responding in plain clothes, or if they were I don't know. When there is an accident we would have officers respond in full uniform," he said.