An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A taxi-dri­ver who suf­fered a seizure as he was dri­ving along Scott Bushe Street in Wood­brook yes­ter­day, had to be hos­pi­talised af­ter he col­lid­ed with five cars and in­jured the front seat pas­sen­ger.

The un­fold­ing dra­ma be­gan around 9.30 am as the dri­ver turned down Colville Street off Wright­son Road; and on­to Ari­api­ta Av­enue be­fore dri­ving down Scott Bushe Street – which is where he al­leged­ly suf­fered a seizure and lost con­trol of his white wag­on.

This, af­ter he came to a stop as he crashed in­to the fifth ve­hi­cle and lost con­scious­ness.

One of the own­ers whose car he dam­aged dur­ing the dri­ve, was a li­censed firearm hold­er who “chased” af­ter him, be­liev­ing it was a rob­bery in progress.

Eye-wit­ness­es who saw the armed man alert­ed the po­lice, be­liev­ing it was a dead­ly am­bush.

As of­fi­cers of the Port-of-Spain Task Force re­spond­ed, they found the 63-year-old man be­hind the wheel, un­con­scious; while the 51-year-old front seat pas­sen­ger screamed in agony as she com­plained of a back in­jury.

Call­ing im­me­di­ate­ly for med­ical as­sis­tance, of­fi­cers were crit­i­cal of the emer­gency re­sponse af­ter be­ing told there was no am­bu­lance avail­able.

As the of­fi­cers, as well as res­i­dents and work­ers from near­by busi­ness­es rushed out to as­sist – they were able to re­move the dri­ver and placed him to lie in the dri­ve-way of a pri­vate pre-school as they ren­dered first aid.

How­ev­er, ad­vised not to move the woman as the ex­tent and sever­i­ty of her in­juries were un­known, the of­fi­cers said it was heart­break­ing to hear her beg­ging for help and none was forth­com­ing up to 11 am.

Two of the po­lice of­fi­cers even drove over to the Wright­son Road Fire Sta­tion to re­quest an am­bu­lance as­sist, and were turned away by of­fi­cers who said there were no EMT’s avail­able.

It was on­ly fol­low­ing the in­ter­ven­tion of a se­nior fire of­fi­cial that two EMT’s ar­rived around 11.15 am, and took the in­jured woman to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

An am­bu­lance owned and op­er­at­ed by GM­RTT ar­rived min­utes ear­li­er and con­veyed the dri­ver to the same hos­pi­tal.

As­sist­ing the po­lice and fire of­fi­cers was Brent Lee, a se­cu­ri­ty guard from a near­by busi­ness who sprang in­to ac­tion af­ter he ad­mit­ted­ly heard the “loud bang.”

Cer­ti­fied in first aid, he con­firmed the part he played, first­ly to sta­bilise the dri­ver – and then in try­ing to calm the fright­ened woman who suf­fers from pan­ic and anx­i­ety at­tacks.

He too was crit­i­cal of how long it took med­ical help to ar­rive at the scene.

Lee re­count­ed to re­porters that af­ter the dri­ver re­gained con­scious­ness, he ad­mit­ted to the of­fi­cials present that he had not eat­en since 3.30 am.

The dri­ver claimed not re­mem­ber­ing much ex­cept that his eyes closed as he was dri­ving, fol­low­ing which he re­alised he had been in an ac­ci­dent be­fore he suf­fered an­oth­er seizure.

Grate­ful and re­lieved as the vic­tims were tak­en to hos­pi­tal, Lee is­sued an ap­peal for peo­ple to learn first aid, adding that it could save the lives of their loved ones as well as strangers in the fu­ture.

He re­vealed the part he and his broth­er had played in ad­min­is­ter­ing first aid to their fa­ther when he suf­fered a heart at­tack sev­er­al years ago.

Telling peo­ple that to­mor­row was not promised to any­one, Lee con­clud­ed, “You don’t know how it’s go­ing to hap­pen.”

He ad­vised every house­hold to have a first aid kit at the ready, and for all mem­bers or at least one per­son to be able to ad­min­is­ter help dur­ing an emer­gency un­til med­ical pro­fes­sion­als ar­rive.