A man from Bushlot, on the Corentyne, has become the region’s latest road fatality after he was run over by a lorry on Tuesday morning.
Dead is Ganpat Ganpat 38, of lot 298 Bushlot, Corentyne. The man was unable to walk and earned a living by seeking assistance from villagers. According to reports, the man was crushed to death on the Corentyne Highway when a lorry, belonging to a local beverage company, ran over him.
Divisional Traffic Officer, Superintendent Boodnarine Persaud, who visited the scene discovered that the lorry was reversing at the time of the accident.
“The lorry was parked and he was called upon by the sales person who was out of the lorry. He started to reverse and collided with a pedestrian who was in an almost sitting position on the road,” Persaud explained.
The victim’s father, Ganpat Chunoo, told this publication that it was carelessness on the part of the driver which resulted in the tragic loss of his son. He explained that the driver got into the lorry and did not look to see whether there was anything behind the vehicle.
“The boy usually go on the road right there; he was right down at the bottom of the road because he was waiting on somebody to bring something to him. The truck pass the boy and then go back and run on him right dah an kill am dead,” the grieving man said.
According to the dead man’s sister, Yupatie (only name given), her brother was left lying on the roadway for close to one hour after the accident, and it was only after her intervention that he was taken for medical attention.
She further explained that when she arrived on the scene, the lorry driver was sitting in the cab of the vehicle and upon her request, identified himself as the errant driver. The woman related that her brother was still breathing, and after repeated requests, the lorry driver got a car and took him to the Port Mourant Hospital. However, when they arrived at the hospital, he was pronounced dead.
The woman is calling for justice for the death of her brother and noted that no one from the company has visited the family. Ganpat is the third person in four days to be killed on the roads in Berbice. On Saturday, a Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) employee; Shabana Ali, 29, of Nigg, Corentyne, lost her life after the car she was driving slammed into a utility pole at Palmyra, East Coast Berbice.
According to Divisional Traffic Officer, the woman might have been speeding in an attempt to get the Berbice River Bridge before it closed to vehicular traffic.On Monday, Ivan Preme, 60, of H&J Albion Front, Corentyne, was killed when a car ran into the bicycle he was riding. The driver, Jeff Roberts, claims that he was stung by an insect and lost control of the vehicle.
