“Be care­ful” was the tear­ful ad­vice Kerdell Suther­land of­fered to mo­torists and pas­sen­gers hours af­ter iden­ti­fy­ing the body of his sis­ter Ker­lan Suther­land, the sec­ond vic­tim in Fri­day’s trag­ic road fa­tal­i­ty along the Archibald-De Leon High­way.

The trag­ic ac­ci­dent was the un­want­ed first fa­tal­i­ty along the new high­way to Point Fortin, which Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley opened on Sat­ur­day. At the com­mis­sion­ing, Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards Jr urged mo­torists to be cau­tious and con­sci­en­tious when us­ing the high­way and obey the speed lim­its.

Ker­lan, 39, lived with her fam­i­ly in Par­ry Lands, Guapo. A po­lice re­port stat­ed that Suther­land was the front-seat pas­sen­ger of a grey Sun­ny B15 dri­ven by 29-year-old Otis Roach of Sobo Vil­lage, La Brea.

Around 11.20 pm, Keeghan Bap­tiste, 33, of South Oropouche, was dri­ving a black Mit­subishi Lancer, with front-seat pas­sen­ger Tel­son Ross, 35, of La Brea, in the op­po­site di­rec­tion. On near­ing #8 Road, Bap­tiste saw a B15 head­ing to­wards him in his lane, and they col­lid­ed head-on. Point Fortin fire­fight­ers led by Ag FS­SO Robin­son and Point Fortin po­lice, in­clud­ing W/Cpl Cyrus, re­spond­ed and as­sist­ed the vic­tims. Roach and Ker­lan were al­ready dead while an am­bu­lance took Bap­tiste and Ross to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice had not iden­ti­fied Ker­lan un­til yes­ter­day morn­ing. Suther­land said Roach and his sis­ter were friends and had gone out Fri­day night, but he did not know where. He last saw his sis­ter at home on Thurs­day. He said he was not wor­ried, as Ker­lan would usu­al­ly go out and re­turn the next day. She al­so had to get a new phone, so not hear­ing from her was not strange.

“I was not wor­ried be­cause nor­mal­ly she would go out and come back the next day. When I woke up, she would be down­stairs. When I go to work and come back, she would open the door for me,” Suther­land said.

Suther­land was at home on Sat­ur­day night when vil­lagers came and re­port­ed that they last saw Ker­lan with Roach, and they knew there was an uniden­ti­fied woman who died in the crash. He and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers went to the Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion to en­quire, but of­fi­cers told them to re­turn yes­ter­day morn­ing. On­ly when they ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal, they knew Ker­lan had died.

Strug­gling to speak, he de­scribed his sis­ter as some­one who al­ways put oth­ers be­fore her­self. The fam­i­ly is await­ing the re­sults of an au­top­sy so they can make fu­ner­al arrange­ments.