By: Andrew Carmichael
Eight months after he was involved in a deadly accident which claimed the lives of his two colleagues, a 17-year-old survivor is pleading with drivers to stop speeding.
It was on June 20, 2019, along theNaarstigheid Public Road, West Coast Berbice, Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), that a car careened of road, crashed into a tree and exploded, killing the driver and one passenger.
The lone survivor of the fiery motor accident was confined to a wheel chair for three months.
Today, 17-year-old Parmanand Arjune of Bratania still cannot work, but he remembers the reckless way his now dead cousin was driving on their way home from a game of pools.
Even as he and his friend asked his cousin to slow down, he accelerated and eventually lost control of the vehicle.
Arjune’s cousin, Dhaniram Dhanraj was the driver at the time. After losing control of the vehicle, he attempted to regain control, but the vehicle veered off the road, crashed into a coconut tree, and immediately burst into flames.
Arjune was saved from the inferno after he flung himself out of the vehicle as it toppled. The teenager cannot remember anything after the car crashed into the tree. He only remembers regaining consciousness at the hospital.
Arjune, who worked in the rice industry, suffered third-degree burns and had been unable to work since. The first three months following the accident, he experienced excruciating pain.
Now he is worried about drivers who take the wheel on a daily basis.
“They have to drive slowly, because when they drive fast, they can lose control,” he noted.
The mangled vehicle remains on the roadside eight months after, with the owner saying that the Regional Democratic Council should remove it.
“Every time I pass, I look at the car and I remember everything. It is not too good,” said.
