By Iana Seales
A smash-up involving an ambulance and a minibus at the corner of North Road and Orange Walk yesterday boiled over into a heated row between the two drivers.
The ambulance was at the time transporting a patient in critical condition but according to reports the patient was later rushed to the hospital and is in a stable condition. There were no reported injuries.
Eyewitnesses gave conflicting information based on what they saw with some insisting that the ambulance had its siren on and others saying they heard nothing. The minibus driver, who was proceeding west along North Road, was adamant that he heard no siren while approaching the junction while the driver of the ambulance that was heading north along Orange Walk maintained that he followed the rules and kept the siren on.
A traffic rank, who arrived on the scene a short while after the accident occurred, pleaded for calm as the row between the two drivers deepened. He later detained both men commenting that he was unclear as to what really happened.
“Let the court decide because both of them sticking to a particular story when one had to be wrong”, an eyewitness said.
Stabroek News arrived on the scene a few minutes after the accident occurred a little after 4 pm. The wrecked minibus was in the canal at North Road and the driver was standing on the road telling his side of the story.
The man who goes by the alias, ‘Redman’, said he had just dropped off his family and was going to make a pick up when the accident happened. He said the ambulance had no siren on and that it hit him twice when he reached the junction.
“I see this man when I reach the junction. Honestly I didn’t hear he coming because he didn’t had the siren on and there was nothing I could do to prevent the crash. But he end up knocking me two times that is what send me overboard”, the man related.
Redman said after he was hit his first reaction was to take off his seat belt since he feared being pinned down in the minibus. When he hit the canal he quickly climbed to safety and was forced to take off his shirt because it picked up moss among other things from the canal.
He said that if the ambulance had the siren on the accident would not have occurred because he would have had an idea that it was approaching from some direction. But the ambulance driver, who is attached to the Davis Memorial Hospital, later related that he had on the siren. The man said he was transporting a patient and that the rules state that the siren must be on in such instances.
“I could not have been driving without it on that makes no sense. I had it on from since the patient entered the ambulance and up until the accident happened. There is no reason for me to make that up”, the driver said.
He later got angry when some persons at the scene who claimed to have witnessed the accident got vocal and accused him of being dishonest. The group said the siren was on but that the ambulance made a brief stop on Orange Walk and that it came off then. He failed to put it back on, according to the group and ended up crashing into the minibus when he reached the junction.
Several vendors at the market then erupted saying they heard the siren from a distance and that it was on all the time. The row then intensified between the two drivers.
