RALPH BAN­WARIE

A fam­i­ly out­ing to Man­zanil­la on the eve of to­day’s Di­vali hol­i­day turned trag­ic for a moth­er and her ba­by yes­ter­day, af­ter they were killed when the ve­hi­cle they were in crashed along the Man­zanil­la/Ma­yaro Road.

Sasha Su­ru­jbal­ly, 21, and her three-month-old ba­by, So­ri­ah, died on the spot while three oth­er oc­cu­pants of the ve­hi­cle were rushed to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment by am­bu­lance.

Po­lice said an eye­wit­ness told them around 2.15 pm, the ve­hi­cle which Sasha was dri­ving be­gan to swerve along the road­way be­fore crash­ing in­to an elec­tric­i­ty pole. Fire of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed had to use the jaws of life to re­move the oc­cu­pants of the ve­hi­cle, as they were pinned in­side.

Traf­fic along the Ma­yaro Road came to stand­still as dri­vers of some ve­hi­cles stopped and their pas­sen­gers came out and tried ini­tial­ly tried to as­sist the fam­i­ly, who are from Ma­haraj Hill, Coalmine, San­gre Grande.

Rel­a­tives who rushed to the ac­ci­dent on hear­ing the news wept un­con­trol­lably at the scene while oth­ers rushed to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal to see their oth­er loved ones.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Bel­grave viewed the bod­ies and or­dered their re­moval to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, from where they will be tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex for post mortems.

Vis­it­ing the scene were ASP Dave Re­vanales, Sgt Racha, Cpl Singh and PC Baron.