PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Be­fore dawn yes­ter­day, a phone call from Crys­tal Ba­boolal’s cell phone came through to her fa­ther, Frank Ba­boolal.

He an­swered, ex­pect­ing to sim­ply give the as­sur­ance to his 28-year-old daugh­ter that he had left the door open for her as she had asked.

In­stead, he re­ceived news from an un­fa­mil­iar voice on the oth­er end that his daugh­ter had died in an ac­ci­dent along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near to the Di­vali Na­gar.

The 66-year-old man told re­porters that his daugh­ter had been stay­ing with her boyfriend on most days, but on Sat­ur­day she had gone to his home Cane Farm, Arou­ca home to wash clothes.

Be­fore she left his home with her boyfriend, she told her fa­ther that she would be com­ing back in the morn­ing and had asked him to leave the door open for her.

She was his on­ly child, whom he had raised as a sin­gle fa­ther since she was four years old af­ter his re­la­tion­ship with her moth­er could not be saved.

Ba­boolal, Michael Ash­ton, 36, of Low­er San­ta Cruz, and Michael Wal­ters, 20, of Laven­tille Road, San Juan, died af­ter a Nis­san Ti­i­da head­ing north along the high­way re­port­ed­ly hit the back of a dump truck dri­ven by a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion.

Po­lice sus­pect the dri­ver of the Ti­i­da fell asleep at the wheel.

Ash­ton’s rel­a­tives were too dis­traught to speak with mem­bers of the me­dia yes­ter­day.

Wal­ters' rel­a­tives said they learned of his pass­ing af­ter news of the ac­ci­dent broke on so­cial me­dia.

They de­scribed the 20-year-old as a good boy who had a bright fu­ture ahead of him.

Rel­a­tives said all they knew when Wal­ters left on Sat­ur­day was that he was head­ing out for “a lime.”

Ba­boolal was re­mem­bered by friends on so­cial me­dia as a girl who liked to mod­el and dance.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the trio were re­turn­ing from a lime in South Trinidad when the tragedy be­fell them.

Cor­po­ral Mo­hammed, of the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day evening, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims.

The TTPS said it “notes with con­cern the trau­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with un­for­tu­nate events such as these and ap­peals to mo­torists to be re­mind­ed of the im­por­tance of keep­ing safe and alert when dri­ving on the na­tion’s road­ways.

In ad­her­ing to road safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and prac­tices, the TTPS stress­es that these will aid in pre­vent­ing tragedies of sim­i­lar na­ture from oc­cur­ring.”

The TTPS re­leased con­firmed that 71 per­sons have lost their lives in road traf­fic ac­ci­dents for the year, com­pared to 97 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

This TTPS said ac­counts for a 27 per cent re­duc­tion in road fa­tal­i­ties.