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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Heart attack victim dies after crashing into 3 pedestrians

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20131211

Natasha Fran­cis, one of three sur­vivors of Mon­day night's fa­tal car crash at Fen's, Mara­bel­la, be­lieves God saved her for a rea­son.The ac­ci­dent claimed the life of the dri­ver, Gary Sookdeo, who suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack at the wheel.Speak­ing from her Williamsville home yes­ter­day, Fran­cis, 38, said she be­lieved God had a greater pur­pose for her life.She suf­fered dam­age to her spine when Sookdeo's car ploughed in­to her and two oth­er pedes­tri­ans–Dar­ryl Subero, 17, and Steve Flem­ming, 44–who were stand­ing at a bus stop.

"God does every­thing for a rea­son. At this mo­ment, I can­not see the rea­son but I am cer­tain I will know the rea­son lat­er on. I am just glad for life," she told the T&T Guardian.The moth­er of five chil­dren, rang­ing in ages from ten to 22, works at the We Are All An­gels day­care and pre-school.Fran­cis said she got off her shift at 6 pm and was wait­ing for the bus to Pi­paro short­ly af­ter 7 pm. While wait­ing, she said, she in­ter­act­ed with Flem­ming and Subero, whom she knew, though not by name, from wait­ing for the bus every evening.

"The young boy (Subero) joined us on­ly sec­onds be­fore the ac­ci­dent," she re­called.She said she did not see the sil­ver-grey Opel As­tra dri­ven by Sookdeo as it ap­proached."All I hear was 'Bam!' and I thought some­body may have got­ten hit. That was the last thing I re­mem­ber. It was on­ly when I opened my eyes, I re­alised I was in it too," she said."When I looked around, I saw the boy ly­ing on the ground. I thought he was dead.

She said she spent the night at the hos­pi­tal where she had X-rays and oth­er tests and was dis­charged yes­ter­day morn­ing. Fran­cis said she was in a lot of pain and did not know if she would be well enough to re­turn to her job.Around 7 pm, Sookdeo, 44, an op­er­a­tions man­ag­er at Petrotrin, Pointe-a Pierre, had just left the sports club af­ter a game of ten­nis. Sookdeo, who lived in Williamsville, was on his way to pick up his wife, Kathy Ann, who was work­ing out in a gym at Mar­ket Street.

While dri­ving east along Union Road, Mara­bel­la, he suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack, crashed in­to two TSTT posts and hit the three pedes­tri­ans be­fore com­ing to a halt af­ter crash­ing in­to the gate of Fen Mo­hammed's.At the scene of the ac­ci­dent, eye­wit­ness Nigel Lewis, who was stand­ing on the junc­tion at Union Road, said he first checked the in­jured pedes­tri­ans then the dri­ver, who was still alive mo­ments af­ter the crash. Lewis said af­ter check­ing the dri­ver he ran back to where the three pedes­tri­ans lay.

" I don't know first aid but I did what I could to the best of my abil­i­ty to help these peo­ple."Fire Ser­vice am­bu­lances ar­rived and the three were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, Sookdeo hav­ing al­ready died dur­ing the pe­ri­od.Short­ly af­ter, Sookdeo's wife, Kathy Ann, ap­peared on the scene but was too dis­traught to speak as she wait­ed for the DMO to come and pro­nounce her hus­band dead and al­low the re­moval of his body.

A fam­i­ly friend, San­jay Sanasie, de­scribed Sookdeo as a re­al­ly nice guy who was a very safe dri­ver. Sanasie said it was a nor­mal rou­tine for Sookdeo to drop his wife off at the gym while he went to the sports club and pick her up lat­er. An au­top­sy at the mor­tu­ary of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal re­vealed Sookdeo died from a heart at­tack.


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