Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A Ch­agua­nas man was killed while at­tempt­ing to cross the Solomon Ho­choy High­way on Sat­ur­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 10.30 pm, a 20-year-old dri­ver from Gran Cou­va was head­ing north on the high­way when he saw a pedes­tri­an try­ing to cross near the Chan­der­nagore walkover, just af­ter the Chase Vil­lage fly­over.

The dri­ver tried to swerve to avoid the man but still made con­tact. The pedes­tri­an fell on­to the road­way and was then struck and run over by sev­er­al ve­hi­cles.

Po­lice re­spond­ed to the scene and the vic­tim’s dis­mem­bered body was re­cov­ered by un­der­tak­ers. The dri­ver was in­ter­viewed by po­lice but not de­tained as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

When a Guardian Me­dia team vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day, rem­nants of the vic­tim’s body that had been missed by un­der­tak­ers were still strewn across the north­bound lane.

He was iden­ti­fied as Isa­iah Ba­choo of Freeport.

A res­i­dent who wit­nessed the ac­ci­dent and told Guardian Me­dia what tran­spired.

“He saw when he get bounce. He raise his two hands up in the air, straight up, to iden­ti­fy him­self from the road but the ve­hi­cle struck him,” she said.

She claimed the vic­tim, who she be­lieved was home­less, would have cel­e­brat­ed his 65th birth­day next month.

“He told my hus­band that he was go­ing to get his first pen­sion next month,” an­oth­er res­i­dent said, de­scrib­ing him as friend­ly and help­ful. “He didn’t tell any­body any­thing bad. He was a nice per­son.”

Ear­li­er this month, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture an­nounced it would un­der­take emer­gency re­pairs on the walkover, the on­ly des­ig­nat­ed cross­ing point link­ing Chan­der­nagore and Carlsen Field.

The min­istry ad­vised res­i­dents us­ing the walkover to ex­er­cise cau­tion or con­sid­er safer al­ter­na­tive routes due to struc­tur­al is­sues.

“Those who must use the struc­ture are strong­ly urged to ex­er­cise the high­est de­gree of cau­tion and walk at the edge of the sur­face and not in the cen­tre when cross­ing,” it said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John for an up­date on the re­pairs. John said she would look in­to the mat­ter and pro­vide a re­sponse.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.