RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

A fam­i­ly of three and a fam­i­ly friend were said to be still in shock last night but thank­ing God they were still alive, fol­low­ing a freak ac­ci­dent where a tree fell on the car they were in, crush­ing part of it.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial po­lice re­port, at about 11.30 am yes­ter­day, Lisa Ram­per­sad, of #87 Tul­sa Trace, San Fran­cique Road, Pe­nal, was dri­ving a white Mit­subishi Lancer south along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, just af­ter the Mount Hope round­about on the ex­treme left lane, when a tree sud­den­ly fell on the ve­hi­cle, caus­ing ex­ten­sive dam­ages to the front wind­screen and hood.

The front seat pas­sen­ger Gee­ta Mitchell, 57, po­lice said, re­ceived in­juries to her head. Back­seat pas­sen­ger Am­rit Ram­per­sad al­so re­ceived head in­juries.

AG/FS­SO Lee and a par­ty of Fire Of­fi­cers from the San Juan Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed and cleared the de­bris.

Cpl Williams and WPC Bap­tiste, of the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion, and PCs Hen­ry and Weekes, of the Freeport High­way Pa­trol, were the first re­spon­ders present.

The fall­en tree was among sev­er­al oth­er trees seen be­hind the wire fenc­ing of the Nes­tle fac­to­ry. It is be­lieved that the tree up­root­ed be­cause of the high winds ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing the day yes­ter­day. The high winds alert which was is­sued by the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice on Tues­day was up­grad­ed to Or­ange Alert yes­ter­day at 11.29 am. Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, a rel­a­tive con­firmed four peo­ple were in the ve­hi­cle—her aunt, the twin teen boys and a friend.

The rel­a­tive said her aunt told her she was try­ing to get around to con­duct busi­ness when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

“No fa­tal­i­ties thank God but my aunt told me that they were out do­ing er­rands when it hap­pened. Both the teens are 17 and are twins. They are all from Pe­nal,” the woman, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said.

“My aunt is there at the hos­pi­tal and the last time I spoke to her, she said they were wait­ing to get their vi­tals done and x-rays. One of the teens got lash on the knees and was on the ground ly­ing down. It would have looked like some­one died but no one died. My aunt got a few cuts and scratch­es on her face and stuff,” the rel­a­tive added.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency Unit at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex at about 6 pm, the vic­tims had just had their re­spec­tive x-rays done and were wait­ing to see the doc­tor. All vic­tims were said to be in shock and try­ing to cope with the ac­ci­dent.

“My aunt said she’s in shock and she’s study­ing her sons and still try­ing to come to terms with what hap­pened,” the rel­a­tive said.

Up to late last night, the vic­tims were at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment.