An In­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor has been brought on board to as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to last month’s CNG tank ex­plo­sion of an of­fi­cial school trans­port bus trans­port ve­hi­cle which left its dri­ver in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) CNG Com­pa­ny, Roger Sant yes­ter­day con­firmed this to the T&T Guardian.

Sant’s re­sponse was a co­or­di­nat­ed one, in­clud­ing, from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), NGC CNG and Massy Au­to­mo­tive Com­po­nents Lim­it­ed (MACL).

Sant dis­closed the in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor as the Nat­ur­al Gas Ve­hi­cle In­sti­tute, which is a cer­ti­fied CNG Fu­el Sys­tem In­spec­tor.

“We have al­so en­gaged the ser­vices of this in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor to as­sess the ve­hi­cle’s CNG sys­tem,” Sant said.

He added that im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the in­jured vic­tim— In­dra Changar—the reg­u­la­tor, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) were con­tact­ed and a team set up to start a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) is work­ing with T&T Fire Ser­vice Fire Pre­ven­tion Unit to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent and has al­so en­gaged an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor,” Sant said.

On Sep­tem­ber 21, In­dra Changar, 53, was get­ting ready to leave her home at Munroe Road about 5 am to pick up her school chil­dren pas­sen­gers. As she opened the door of the van there was a loud ex­plo­sion. She was thrown against a wall.

Changar went un­con­scious for a few min­utes. When she re­gained con­scious­ness she found that her en­tire body was on fire and her clothes burnt off com­plete­ly.

Changar sus­tained se­vere burns on her en­tire body and se­vere in­juries to her eyes and has since been ward­ed at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mount Hope.

Changar had the CNG tank in­stalled in her van on Sep­tem­ber 18 by a qual­i­fied tech­ni­cian, who is NGC-ap­proved.

Af­ter in­stal­la­tion, Changar had to take it back on Sep­tem­ber 19 and Sep­tem­ber 20 to have “fi­nal works” done.

Changar had filled up the tank on the night of Sep­tem­ber 20 be­fore park­ing it in the garage area of her home.

Changar usu­al­ly trans­ports pupils of St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School and Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege.

Of­fi­cials from MEEI, MACL and NGC CNG vis­it­ed Changar at the hos­pi­tal.

Both com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to sup­port Changar and her fam­i­ly and re­main in con­tact with her and her fam­i­ly on a dai­ly ba­sis.

“In the spir­it of trust and with re­spect for the fam­i­ly’s wish­es for pri­va­cy on her jour­ney to a full re­cov­ery, we con­tin­ue to en­sure that all com­mu­ni­ca­tion is main­tained sole­ly with the im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly,” Sant said.

Changar has been trans­port­ing school chil­dren for just over six years and had de­cid­ed to con­vert her ve­hi­cle to CNG af­ter a rec­om­men­da­tion by NGC.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, NGC CNG Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed be­gan to dis­trib­ute in­cen­tives to maxi taxi, taxi, and pri­vate school bus own­ers who have tran­si­tioned to CNG.

The com­pa­ny said then that it “is man­dat­ed by the gov­ern­ment to ac­cel­er­ate the use of CNG as a ve­hic­u­lar fu­el, as well as in­crease the num­ber of CNG fu­elling points across the coun­try.”

—Rhon­dor Dowlat