Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A woman was killed and two of her rel­a­tives in­jured in an ear­ly-morn­ing crash in Debe, just one day be­fore what would have been her 58th birth­day.

Dead is Sin­tra Singh of La Ro­maine. Her nephew and sis­ter are ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Re­ports in­di­cate that just af­ter 4 am yes­ter­day, the trio was trav­el­ling in a grey Nis­san Cube through Welling­ton Gar­dens. Singh was seat­ed in the back seat, while her nephew was dri­ving. They were re­port­ed­ly on their way to drop Singh’s sis­ter home.

Po­lice said the ve­hi­cle was trav­el­ling down­hill when the brak­ing sys­tem al­leged­ly failed, caus­ing the dri­ver to lose con­trol. The car col­lid­ed with a met­al sign be­fore over­turn­ing.

Res­i­dents who heard the crash rushed to as­sist and helped ex­tri­cate the oc­cu­pants. Singh and her rel­a­tives were tak­en to hos­pi­tal, where she died while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment.

At the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives said they were still strug­gling to come to terms with the tragedy.

They de­scribed Singh, who had no chil­dren, as a “moth­er fig­ure” to her nephews and nieces.

Al­though they were told that brake fail­ure may have caused the ac­ci­dent, they said they were await­ing fur­ther de­tails from the sur­vivors, who re­main hos­pi­talised.

The fam­i­ly said they were un­sure how Singh had in­tend­ed to cel­e­brate her birth­day to­day, but had planned to pre­pare a spe­cial meal for her.

Ex­press­ing grat­i­tude to the res­i­dents who re­spond­ed to the crash, a rel­a­tive said: “We are grate­ful that they were there and re­act­ed quick­ly.”

Singh re­port­ed­ly suf­fered from di­a­betes and had pre­vi­ous­ly un­der­gone triple by­pass surgery.

Bar­rack­pore po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.