A doctor was among six people who lost their lives in four accidents which occurred within eight hours of each other early yesterday morning.The victims have been identified as:
�2 Lindon Chang, 33, of Maraj Drive, Glencoe
�2 Chang's cousin, William Chang, 31, of Gardier Street, Pt Cumana
�2 Amit Sooknanan, 24, of Rambaju Street, Aranguez, San Juan
�2 Jamie Stocklin, 26, of Union Road, Diego Martin
�2 Clint Sookhan, 19, of Manahambre Road, Princes Town
�2 Andre Edwards, 21, of Parryland, Guapo.
Police said while wet and slippery road conditions caused by heavy rainfall over the weekend may have been responsible for some of the accidents, speeding was also a strong contributing factor.In the first incident, shortly after midnight, cousins Lindon and William Chang were heading west along the Western Main Road, when Lindon lost control of his Mazda 3 near to the International School in Westmoorings. Lindon was a doctor at the Scarborough General Hospital in Tobago.
Police said the car skidded several metres before colliding with an exposed water pipeline which runs along a bridge. The car reportedly flipped onto its hood and landed in the river which runs under the bridge.Drivers contacted Western Division police, who arrived shortly after. However, emergency personnel were too late to save the relatives, as the car quickly sank into the river with both men trapped inside. By the time fire and police officers were able to remove the vehicle, the cousins were already dead.
Investigators said while the men suffered serious injuries in the crash, they believed they drowned.When a news team from the T&T Guardian visited the cousins' relatives at their business place on the Western Main Road, Pt Cumana, yesterday, friends said the family did not wish to speak to the media. They confirmed the circumstances of the accident, and said they were returning home after buying burgers in Port-of-Spain.
Almost an hour later, Sookhan was killed while standing at the side of the Uriah Butler Highway, minutes after escaping injury when his car skidded off the road. Police said around 1.45 am, Sookhan and two of his friends were returning home from a boat cruise when he lost control of his white Nissan B13 after passing the Caroni bridge.Sookhan's car veered right into a strip of grass which separates the highway's two lanes, but he managed to bring it to a stop before it could cross over to the northbound lane.
Sookhan and his two passengers escaped unscathed and got out of the vehicle to contact police and their relatives.Sookhan's friend, Anoop Gadjadhar, told police his friend was standing near the road while speaking to his mother on his cellphone, when a black pickup crashed into him, throwing him several feet in the air. The driver of the vehicle then sped off. Sookhan was pronounced dead on the scene by a district medical officer.
Investigators said his friends were able to give them a description of the vehicle and its licence plate and an arrest is imminent.In the last incident, Sooknanan and Stocklin were crushed to death when their car ran into the back of a pickup which was parked on the shoulder of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway in Barataria.
Police said around 7 am, Alvin Rennie parked his Toyota Hilux along the shoulder of the eastbound lane, after the Maritime Flyover, to urinate. While he was doing so, the friends' gold Nissan Cefiro crashed into the back of his vehicle. Investigators said that upon impact, Rennie's vehicle moved and collided with him.
Sooknanan and Stocklin died in their car. Fire officers removed their bodies from the mangled wreckage using hydraulic power tools commonly referred to as the "jaws of life." Rennie suffered serious injuries and his two legs were broken. He remained warded in a stable condition at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope yesterday.
Their deaths raised the road fatality toll to 130, according to statistics from the Highway Patrol and Traffic Branch, and came less than a month after acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams boasted of a 22 per cent reduction in road deaths in comparison to last year. Williams made the announcement late last month, while speaking at the launch of a rebranded Highway Patrol Unit.
"We set a ten per cent reduction in fatal accidents for 2013, those were targets we set earlier in the year. At this point in time, there is a 22 per cent recorded decrease, which is way beyond the set target. We do in fact hope we continue to realise higher than the target percentage reduction," Williams was quoted as saying.The statistics show that the toll crossed the 200 mark from 2006 to 2010, with a marked decrease occurring in 2011 and last year.