RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Has­si­na Mathu­ra, who was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured when a bus rolled over her left arm in Palmyra, re­mains in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, af­ter un­der­go­ing re­con­struc­tive surgery.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, her neigh­bour, Akash Ma­haraj, de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “hor­rif­ic,” say­ing it left vil­lagers deeply shak­en.

Ma­haraj was among the first to ar­rive at the scene on Thurs­day and re­called hear­ing Mathu­ra groan­ing in pain af­ter she fell. He said he im­me­di­ate­ly got a tow­el and wrapped it around her in­jured arm as she lay on the ground.

Ma­haraj, who pre­vi­ous­ly suf­fered an arm in­jury him­self af­ter be­ing cut by a chain­saw, said the sight was dis­tress­ing. He said Mathu­ra’s broth­er lat­er vis­it­ed her at the hos­pi­tal and was told she un­der­went emer­gency surgery on her arm.

Po­lice were told that around 1 pm, the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus dri­ver, who was ply­ing the Ste Madeleine route, was head­ing east along the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, near AJ’s Au­to in Palmyra, when he be­gan slow­ing down to stop as a pas­sen­ger at­tempt­ed to ex­it the ve­hi­cle.

Mathu­ra, 69, of Palmyra Vil­lage, re­port­ed­ly lost her bal­ance while dis­em­bark­ing, fell to the ground, and the bus rolled on­to her left arm.

The dri­ver, of New Grant, told po­lice he at­tempt­ed to pre­vent her fall but was un­able to do so.

A video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia shows a woman falling while dis­em­bark­ing a PTSC bus in Palmyra and be­com­ing trapped as the ve­hi­cle moves for­ward, with its front wheel mak­ing con­tact with her body and in­jur­ing her arm.

Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our has since as­sured that dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en if the PTSC’s in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­cludes the bus dri­ver breached com­pa­ny pol­i­cy.

The in­ci­dent was raised in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day through an ur­gent ques­tion to Za­k­our, where he was asked what mea­sures are in place to safe­guard the trav­el­ling pub­lic.

In re­sponse, he said the PTSC con­tin­ues to im­ple­ment its dri­ver re­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme, which he ex­plained is de­signed to re­in­force safe dri­ving prac­tices.

The PTSC is ex­pect­ed to com­plete its in­ter­nal probe as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent con­tin­ue.