An au­top­sy at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary has con­firmed that Kalisa Dan­clair died from as­phyx­i­a­tion due to drown­ing, af­ter her car plunged in­to the South Oropouche Riv­er on Mon­day night.

Dan­clair’s sil­ver Toy­ota Axio crashed through a steel bar­ri­er on the Debe Trace Bridge near Ra­hamut Trace and fell in­to the riv­er be­low. The im­pact de­stroyed part of the bridge’s rail­ing. Fire of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue team, and res­i­dents worked to­geth­er to re­trieve her body from the sub­merged ve­hi­cle. A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer lat­er pro­nounced her dead at the scene.

The fa­tal crash oc­curred just me­tres away from a mod­ern but un­used bridge con­struct­ed un­der the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion Project (SHHEPF). Res­i­dents have long ex­pressed con­cerns about the nar­row­ness of the ex­ist­ing bridge and are once again call­ing for ur­gent in­fra­struc­tur­al up­grades to pre­vent fur­ther tragedies.

On Tues­day night, Debe South coun­cil­lor Khem­raj Seecha­ran con­firmed that the dam­aged bridge rail­ing had been re­stored. In a Face­book post, he said dis­cus­sions had al­ready be­gun with Oropouche West MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John, and min­istry of­fi­cials to ex­plore ac­ti­vat­ing the near­by high­way bridge.

“I urge the mo­tor­ing pub­lic to ex­er­cise cau­tion when us­ing this thor­ough­fare,” Seecha­ran said. “The bridge is nar­row. Let us be cau­tious and cour­te­ous on the road.”

Yes­ter­day, Seecha­ran, Dr Bo­doe, and La For­tune/Debe North coun­cil­lor Kr­ish­na Per­sads­ingh vis­it­ed the site and an­nounced plans to work with the min­istry to bring the idle bridge in­to ser­vice. The struc­ture was built as part of the in­com­plete and con­tro­ver­sial Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the SHHEPF.

Of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged the cur­rent bridge pos­es a safe­ty risk, with Dr Bo­doe not­ing it was de­signed for sin­gle-lane use on­ly. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the ex­act cause of the crash re­mains un­known. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are now await­ing the full au­top­sy re­port to de­ter­mine what led to the in­ci­dent.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture said Dan­clair’s death had reignit­ed calls to op­er­a­tionalise crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture that could en­hance pub­lic safe­ty and con­nec­tiv­i­ty in south Trinidad. It not­ed that de­lays in com­plet­ing high­way links con­tin­ue to af­fect mo­bil­i­ty and emer­gency re­sponse in the re­gion.

Min­is­ter John reaf­firmed the min­istry’s com­mit­ment to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and road safe­ty. Among the pro­pos­als un­der ac­tive re­view is a plan to ex­tend the SHHEPF be­yond its cur­rent ter­mi­nus, al­low­ing the in­te­gra­tion of com­plet­ed but un­used struc­tures—such as the Debe Trace bridge—in­to the na­tion­al road net­work.

Mean­while, Dan­clair’s em­ploy­er, HAD­CO Group, ex­pressed deep sor­row over her pass­ing. In a state­ment on Tues­day, the com­pa­ny said the man­age­ment and staff were mourn­ing the loss of a val­ued col­league.

“She was a mo­ti­va­tor and a light to every­one who knew her. Her hu­mour, kind­ness, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism touched every cor­ner of our or­gan­i­sa­tion,” the state­ment read.