An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Strug­gling to ac­cept the loss of their younger broth­er, who was de­scribed as a “best cook” and “life of the par­ty” yes­ter­day, the fam­i­ly of PC Tris­ton Mc Williams have vowed to con­tin­ue his lega­cy of lov­ing freely and help­ing oth­ers un­con­di­tion­al­ly.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at their home at Ma­hogony Park, Up­per Er­i­ca Street, Laven­tille, his broth­ers re­called his nat­ur­al ge­nius for any ex­am with­out hav­ing to study.

Mc Williams, 26, died at hos­pi­tal on Tues­day, fol­low­ing a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, Barataria. He was last at­tached to the In­ter-Agency Task Force in Aranguez.

A re­port said he had been dri­ving east along the high­way around 5.40 am, when he re­port­ed­ly lost con­trol of his Nis­san Ti­i­da mo­tor car near the Ve­hi­cle Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (VM­COTT).

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers be­lieve he hit a pile of stones at the side of the road, caus­ing the car to be­come air­borne and sub­se­quent­ly crash­ing in­to a T&TEC light pole.

Passers-by who stopped to ren­der aid were un­able to move Mc Williams, whose low­er limbs were sev­ered dur­ing the crash.

The Emer­gency Health Ser­vices (EHS) were sum­moned and lat­er took the of­fi­cer to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries around 6.39 am. Med­ical of­fi­cials said he died as a re­sult of mas­sive haem­or­rhag­ing from low­er limb am­pu­ta­tion.

Tris­ton’s el­dest broth­er, PC Ja­mal Mc Williams, who is cur­rent­ly at­tached to the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, said the for­mer Trin­i­ty Col­lege grad­u­ate could be count­ed on for any­thing.

Known for be­ing able to ace any ex­am with­out hav­ing to put in any ef­fort at all, Ja­mal said, “From since he was young, he was al­ways a bright per­son, you could say a schol­ar.

“He wouldn’t study for no ex­am or any­thing like that, he would just skim through the books the day be­fore...a nat­ur­al.”

Hav­ing spent the last six years in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), as he en­list­ed at the age of 19 and grad­u­at­ed at 20, Ja­mal, who him­self was in­volved in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion in 2012, said, “It was so un­for­tu­nate.”

Fam­i­ly mem­bers are un­cer­tain if tired­ness or a lack of sleep con­tributed to the crash.

Ad­mit­ting it was a pos­si­bil­i­ty Tris­ton could have fall­en asleep or dozed off be­hind the wheel, Ja­mal ap­pealed to oth­er dri­vers who might be tired and want to take a chance be­hind the wheel not to do so.

“If you have any rel­a­tives close by on your route home, you could stop and take a five or pull aside and re­lax in your ve­hi­cle. A lit­tle half-hour could take you a long way,” he said.

The Mc Williams fam­i­ly is head­ed by his fa­ther Sgt Christo­pher Mc Williams, a court pros­e­cu­tor at­tached to the Court and Process Branch, Port-of-Spain; and in­cludes Tris­ton’s third broth­er, PC Shaquille Mc Williams, who is at­tached to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB).