KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Armed of­fi­cers at­tached to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pri­vate res­i­dence in Phillip­ine rushed from the com­pound yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter a grey pick-up slammed in­to the prop­er­ty’s perime­ter wall, trig­ger­ing an im­me­di­ate se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse along the SS Erin Road.

What be­gan as the sound of screech­ing tyres and crash­ing met­al quick­ly sent of­fi­cers flood­ing on­to the road­way, be­liev­ing the loud im­pact may have been some form of at­tack on the Prime Min­is­ter’s home.

The ac­ci­dent, which oc­curred be­tween 8 am and 9 am, left two peo­ple seek­ing med­ical treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Mo­torist Ja­son Khem­raj said he and a col­league were trav­el­ling be­hind the grey pick-up when the dri­ver ap­peared to lose con­trol while nav­i­gat­ing a bend near the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence.

As they round­ed the cor­ner, Khem­raj said they sud­den­ly heard a loud crash­ing noise and watched as the ve­hi­cle over­turned and smashed in­to the wall sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty.

Khem­raj said that with­in sec­onds, armed of­fi­cers poured out of the res­i­dence and rushed to­wards the scene.

“When it flipped, it hit the wall, then we saw about 20 to 25 po­lice of­fi­cers just run out from the Prime Min­is­ter’s house. They thought it was a bomb or some­body com­ing to at­tack, but then they re­alised it was an ac­ci­dent,” Khem­raj said.

South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers quick­ly de­scend­ed on the area and cor­doned off part of the road­way as emer­gency re­spon­ders worked to clear the scene.

An un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle and armed of­fi­cers re­mained sta­tioned near the en­trance to the res­i­dence while traf­fic slow­ly built up along the busy road­way.

With flu­id leak­ing on­to the road, fire­fight­ers lat­er re­spond­ed and ap­plied sand to con­tain the spill.

A wreck­er even­tu­al­ly up­right­ed the man­gled grey pick-up be­fore tow­ing it away.

Khem­raj said the dri­ver of the grey ve­hi­cle ap­peared to suf­fer in­juries to his head and ear and may al­so have sus­tained in­ter­nal in­juries.

An­oth­er eye­wit­ness said he saw the grey pick-up swerve be­fore col­lid­ing with a white pick-up that was trav­el­ling along the road­way mo­ments be­fore crash­ing in­to the wall.

Naris­sa Nazir, the aunt of Dami­an Ali, who was dri­ving the white pick-up, said she stum­bled up­on the af­ter­math while on her way to work.

Nazir said traf­fic was al­ready be­ing di­vert­ed when cu­rios­i­ty prompt­ed her to stop and check what had hap­pened.

Mo­ments lat­er, she re­alised the over­turned ve­hi­cle in­volved her nephew.

She said Ali briefly re­count­ed the ter­ri­fy­ing mo­ments lead­ing up to the crash, ex­plain­ing that he had been head­ing to­wards San Fer­nan­do around 8.10 am when he no­ticed the grey pick-up trav­el­ling in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

“He said the van picked up a skid and slammed in­to the wall. As you can see, the wall is bro­ken, and it hit him. He said he tried to move away from it, and some­how the ve­hi­cles col­lid­ed. I am just grate­ful noth­ing hap­pened to my nephew, and I am sor­ry to hear about the oth­er dri­ver, who was se­vere­ly in­jured. I hope every­thing works out,” Nazir said.

Up to late yes­ter­day, po­lice had not re­leased fur­ther de­tails on the con­di­tion of the in­jured men or the cir­cum­stances that caused the dri­ver to lose con­trol.