Sascha Wil­son

“This is neg­li­gence,” lament­ed 70-year-old Har­i­lal Ram­sun­dar, hours af­ter his youngest son was fa­tal­ly hit by a steel beam that de­tached from a hiab crane truck in Siparia yes­ter­day.

The ac­ci­dent hap­pened less than five min­utes af­ter Rod­ney Ram­sun­dar, 44, left his home to pur­chase a cig­a­rette at a near­by par­lour along the SS Erin Road in Syne Vil­lage.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, short­ly af­ter 7 am the truck, owned by En­de­con De­signs & Con­struc­tion Ltd, was pro­ceed­ing out of Siparia in the same di­rec­tion as Ram­sun­dar. It is be­lieved that the out­rig­ger from the hiab be­came loose and struck Ram­sun­dar on his head, caus­ing mas­sive head in­juries.

The out­rig­ger is used to sta­bilise the truck when the hiab is lift­ing a load. He died in­stant­ly.

Re­call­ing the mo­ments lead­ing up to his son’s death, Har­i­lal Ram­sun­dar said, “I was home here sit­ting down. I know that Rod­ney just leave to go by the par­lour. He tell he step­moth­er he go­ing to buy a cig­a­rette and come back, and Tan­ty don’t cook. He eh want no food to­day.”

Not even five min­utes lat­er, he said his sec­ond son Al­lan told them a truck had struck Ram­sun­dar and killed him. Har­i­lal said he and his wife Sunar­i­day Lo­gan walked to the scene where he saw his son’s body on the road cov­ered with a sheet.

Try­ing to con­tain his grief, the fa­ther of three blamed care­less­ness for his son’s demise. He said his son nev­er had a chance, as he would not have seen the truck be­cause it ap­proached from be­hind him.

“That is not on­ly an ac­ci­dent, that is a whole child’s life, a man, that is a young man life that dri­ver take. I even tell the dri­ver right there in the pres­ence of the po­lice. I say same that same type of work that all yuh do­ing, I do al­most that same thing you know and safe­ty comes first.”

He said the com­pa­ny in­volved was sup­posed to have done prop­er safe­ty checks be­fore the truck went on the road.

“I want jus­tice to be done. I have to get jus­tice. As I say, this is to­tal neg­li­gence and this is what I can’t stand for.

“This hap­pen to my son but what if the oth­er side (beam) fly off and a ve­hi­cle was pass­ing with five pas­sen­gers. Would they say it hap­pen by a mis­take? When death is con­cerned there is noth­ing like a mis­take.”

He said when Ram­sun­dar was nine years old he fell off a tree and suf­fered an in­jury that caused him to walk with a limp. He was un­em­ployed and had no wife or chil­dren.

The fam­i­ly said no­body from the com­pa­ny had con­tact­ed them up to the time they were speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia.

The dri­ver, who lives at Mo­hess Road, Pe­nal, was in­ter­viewed by the po­lice and al­lowed to go home pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The truck was al­so im­pound­ed at the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion for an in­spec­tion to be car­ried out.

When Guardian called one of the cell num­bers on the truck, a man an­swered and di­rect­ed us to an­oth­er per­son. That per­son, how­ev­er, said he was not au­tho­rised to speak on be­half of the com­pa­ny. When the com­pa­ny’s land­line was called, a woman an­swered the phone and said no one was avail­able for com­ment. An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed to be done to­mor­row. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.