Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil PRO can­di­date Shomari Hec­tor is now hos­pi­talised af­ter be­ing in­volved in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent short­ly af­ter polls for the elec­tion opened on Sun­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the for­mer THA As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary got in­to the ac­ci­dent along Mil­ford Road in Bon Ac­cord, near the com­mu­ni­ty's An­gli­can Church, around 6 am. His ve­hi­cle re­port­ed­ly ran off the road and hit a con­crete struc­ture. Fire­fight­ers who re­spond­ed to the scene said Hec­tor was trapped in the ve­hi­cle af­ter the ac­ci­dent and had to be freed. He was said to have suf­fered se­vere leg and chest in­juries and was sta­bilised at the scene be­fore be­ing tak­en the hos­pi­tal.

Pro­vid­ing an up­date around mid­day, cur­rent PNM THA mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvon Mor­ris said he was in­formed that Hec­tor was in sta­ble con­di­tion.

"We thank almighty God for that and we con­tin­ue to pray for his speedy re­cov­ery and we wish him well go­ing for­ward," Mor­ris said.

"We hope that what­ev­er in­juries would have been sus­tained are not too crit­i­cal and that he can re­cov­er quick­ly, speed­i­ly and we would con­tin­ue to give him the sup­port as a par­ty and just as hu­man be­ings go­ing for­ward to en­sure that he's back on his feet, ready and rear­ing to go again."

PNM Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing al­so of­fered prayers for Hec­tor and his fam­i­ly on be­half of her­self and the par­ty. She said once more in­for­ma­tion comes for­ward about his con­di­tion, the par­ty will do what is nec­es­sary to sup­port him.

"As soon as we are ful­ly ap­prised by his fam­i­ly, once they are briefed and they go on to in­form the To­ba­go coun­cil and the wider PNM then we will know we can sup­port him...we are will­ing to sup­port its mem­bers as best as pos­si­ble. So we wait on the ad­vice from fam­i­ly," Leza­ma-Lee Sing said.

Hec­tor was an As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary in the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture and Trans­porta­tion and THA deputy pres­i­dent dur­ing the PNM's last tenure. How­ev­er, he was not se­lect­ed by the par­ty to con­test his Bethel/New Grange seat in last De­cem­ber's THA elec­tions, where the PNM lost 14-1 to the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots.

Hec­tor is run­ning un­op­posed for the coun­cil's PRO po­si­tion in the PNM in­ter­nal elec­tion.