Derek Achong

Act­ing Chief Jus­tice Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion with head trau­ma and in­ter­nal bleed­ing fol­low­ing an ear­ly morn­ing car crash in Trinic­i­ty which claimed the lives of four par­ty­go­ers. Up to late yes­ter­day, Kan­ga­loo, 56, of West­moor­ings, re­mained in the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, drift­ing in and out of con­scious­ness.

Hos­pi­tal sources said he suf­fered com­pli­ca­tions which caused his heart to stop and had to re­sus­ci­tat­ed by doc­tors who per­formed emer­gency surgery. At around 5.30 am, Kan­ga­loo was trav­el­ing east along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way when his black Toy­a­ta Pra­do SUV col­lid­ed with a white Hon­da Civic at the Or­ange Grove in­ter­sec­tion.

The oc­cu­pants of the oth­er ve­hi­cle-Roy Ramtha­hal, 25, of In­dus­try Lane, Bel­mont; Jevon Spencer, 22, an em­ploy­ee of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion from Willis Street, Bel­mont; Je­re­mie John, 24, of St James and an uniden­ti­fied fe­male friend all died at the scene. They were said to be re­turn­ing home from the open­ing of Club Sta­tus (for­mer­ly the Liv­ing Room Night­club) in Ari­ma. Kan­ga­loo, a horse rac­ing en­thu­si­ast, was on his way the Ari­ma Race Club at San­ta Rosa. Trav­el­ling with the judge were two po­lice­men, PCs Mar­tin Cae­sar and Ter­rence For­tune, who had been as­signed as Kan­ga­loo's se­cu­ri­ty de­tail dur­ing his stint as act­ing Chief Jus­tice. They suf­fered mi­nor in­juries in the crash.

Cae­sar, who is at­tached to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, was dri­ving Kan­ga­loo's ve­hi­cle while For­tune, a Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cer, was the front seat pas­sen­ger.

The wreck­ages of both ve­hi­cles were towed to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion where they will re­main im­pound­ed un­til the po­lice com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the fa­tal crash. Kan­ga­loo was vis­it­ed at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day by act­ing Prime Min­ster Jack Warn­er, rel­a­tives and fel­low judges. Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to T&T late yes­ter­day evening fol­low­ing an over­seas trip, a re­lease from the Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Of­fice said. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Ter­ry Young and In­spec­tor David of the North­ern Di­vi­sion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ac­ci­den