Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Sec­onds be­fore her fam­i­ly’s ve­hi­cle crashed head-on in­to a ce­ment truck in Debe, 24-year-old Sim­ran Ra­hamut de­cid­ed to make the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice to shield her 16-month-old son with her body. The young moth­er died at the scene. Her last act was to en­sure that her ba­by sur­vived.

Rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day that the tod­dler and Ra­hamut’s moth­er Ami­da, 46, were in sta­ble con­di­tion. But her fa­ther, Afraz, 50, was un­re­spon­sive at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Ra­hamut’s par­ents had picked her up from work at SM Jaleel Com­pa­ny in Ota­heite where she worked as a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive and was head­ing home.

A po­lice re­port stat­ed that around 5.30 pm on Thurs­day, Ra­hamut was in the back seat of the fam­i­ly’s blue Hon­da Air­wave hatch­back, along with her son who was in a boost­er seat. They were pro­ceed­ing east along M2 Ring Road. It is al­leged the fa­ther over­took a line of traf­fic and col­lid­ed with a Mack ce­ment truck pro­ceed­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

The hatch­back swerved off the road in­to the drain on the north­ern side near Debe Sec­ondary School. Ra­hamut died at the scene while fire­fight­ers used the Jaws of Life to free her fa­ther from the man­gled wreck.

Speak­ing at the fam­i­ly’s Pe­nal home yes­ter­day, Ra­hamut’s el­der sis­ter Kadee­jah Mo­hammed said her par­ents car­ried her nephew for the dri­ve be­cause her sis­ter liked to see him when she fin­ished work.

Their fa­ther al­so worked at SM Jaleel but he did not go to work that day. She re­called re­ceiv­ing a fran­tic call from her moth­er say­ing they had been in an ac­ci­dent. Her moth­er and nephew were in the am­bu­lance, her sis­ter’s life­less body was on the ground and her fa­ther was still in the ve­hi­cle.

Mo­hammed said she heard con­flict­ing re­ports about how the ac­ci­dent oc­curred, but her sis­ter pro­tect­ed her son.

“I heard my sis­ter jumped to pro­tect the ba­by from dam­age. She tried to shield him. The ba­by was in the car seat, on the rear seat on the left side. She threw her body on him. I heard they found her body un­der the seat,” she lament­ed.

Mo­hammed said she broke the news of her sis­ter’s death to her moth­er while they were at the hos­pi­tal’s Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment.

“We wait­ed un­til she was sta­ble and I held her hand and said Sim­ran did not make it. She was in­con­solable. She said she wished it was she,” said Mo­hammed.

De­scrib­ing her sis­ter as a lov­ing and car­ing per­son, Mo­hammed said Ra­hamut al­so tu­tored part-time pri­ma­ry school pupils.

“(Sim­ran was) Work­ing and build­ing her life, see­ing about her son. She had pre­vi­ous­ly gone through a rough patch,” the sis­ter said.