It is not of­ten that our es­sen­tial ser­vices re­ceive praise for car­ry­ing out their du­ties, but to­day we wish to com­mend the fire ser­vices, the po­lice from Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion and the para­medics from San­gre Grande who at­tend­ed to three young peo­ple who were in­volved in a two-car smash-up at Crys­tal Stream on Sep­tem­ber 30. When we ar­rived at the scene, which was hor­rif­ic, the care and ad­vice re­ceived from these mem­bers of the es­sen­tial ser­vices are what any­one would wish for in dire sit­u­a­tions. They went about their du­ties as true pro­fes­sion­als de­spite all the emo­tion and com­mo­tion which ac­com­pa­ny an event such as this.

They dis­played kind­ness and car­ing and en­sured the safe­ty of these two young ladies both by keep­ing away the on­look­ers and by in­sist­ing they not be moved un­til the am­bu­lance ar­rived. One par­tic­u­lar fire­man was hold­ing our daugh­ter's friend head steadi­ly while the oth­er was at­tend­ing to our daugh­ter. The po­lice were very dis­creet and gen­tle with us when they need­ed to gar­ner in­for­ma­tion. Peo­ple, all is not lost in this coun­try as there were oth­er mem­bers of the pub­lic, two in par­tic­u­lar-the Ali's, who as­sist­ed the girls by re­mov­ing them from their car and keep­ing watch over them un­til help ar­rived and re­mained un­til the am­bu­lance left. Not an item of their be­long­ings, from cell­phones, hand­bags, jew­el­ry etc, went miss­ing and we all know this could have been dif­fer­ent giv­en an­oth­er sce­nario.

They were al­so at­tend­ed to prompt­ly when they ar­rived at the PoS Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal as the doc­tors and nurs­es went about their du­ties very dili­gent­ly. To all of the above we say thank you and may God bless you as your deeds will nev­er be over­looked or for­got­ten. You have giv­en us a sense of hope that this coun­try of ours is not yet lost to the wildlife which con­tin­ue to threat­en us dai­ly. Last­ly, we of­fer our prayers for the dri­ver of the oth­er car and his fam­i­ly and hope for his swift re­cov­ery.

Ed and Deb­bie Es­pinal/Robert Paul Amar

Fort Dun­don­ald Vil­las St James