By Sara Bharrat
A well-known 52-year-old Goedverwagting businessman died early yesterday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) following an accident on Thursday night on the Vryheid’s Lust Public Road, East Coast Demerara.
At approximately 3:05 am yesterday morning Ronald Bassoo, also known as ‘Eggman’, died at the GPH while receiving medical attention. The driver of the vehicle, 56-year-old Lakeram Seepersaud of William Street, Campbellville, was admitted to Ward B2 at the GPH. Seepersaud suffered a broken left leg and his neck was heavily bandaged yesterday afternoon when this newspaper visited.
According to a relative of Seepersaud, they do not wish the injured man to learn of Bassoo’s death as yet. “He is in no condition to handle it,” the relative said.
The relative said further that Seepersaud does not have any feeling in the bottom half of his body and this might have been caused by injuries the man received to his back.
Bassoo and his cousin-in-law Seepersaud were driving along the southern lane of the Vryheid’s Lust Public Road when, according to a police press release, Seepersaud lost control of the vehicle which ended up in a ditch just across the road from Kamboat Chinese Restaurant.”
When Stabroek News visited the accident scene yesterday an eyewitness recounted what had happened. ”I had just arrived home,” the man said. “It was somewhere between 11 pm and 11:30 pm and I was standing on my bridge when I saw the vehicle.” The man recalled that there was a cloud of dust and smoke surrounding the motor vehicle, a red pick-up. “All I see was a set of lights and the vehicle come spinning toward us,” he recalled. “We didn’t waste no time. We start to run in the opposite direction from the vehicle. I thought it woulda hit us,” the eyewitness recounted.
He went on to say that if it weren’t for the ditch just in front of his house then the pick-up would have smashed through his gate and probably collide with the front of his house. He said, however, it was the ditch which caused the pick-up to topple to its side.
“After the vehicle topple into the ditch we ran towards it and is then I notice a man lying on my bridge,” he said.
The eyewitness went on to recall that the man he later identified as Bassoo was lying on the ground with one of his feet forced through the grillwork of the gate.
“I thought he was the driver, but lil after we notice that the driver was still in the vehicle. Bassoo did not bleed excessively but he get a hard knock when he fly out that vehicle.” The eyewitness said that Bassoo didn’t speak but he was breathing.
“He probably flew out of the vehicle while it was in the process of toppling into the ditch,” the man said. “It all happened so fast. But if he was wearing his seatbelt he woulda probably been alive today.”
Because of the impact, the eyewitness said, the vehicle’s door was jammed. “We tie a rope to the pick-up door and another vehicle and proceeded to yank it open so that we could carefully remove the driver [Seepersaud]. He was still strapped in by his seatbelt.”
The eyewitness managed to contact the men’s relatives and at approximately 11:35 pm he assisted them in rushing the men to the hospital.
“It was only this morning I found out that the man in the accident was Bassoo,” the man said yesterday.
Bassoo leaves to mourn his wife, Silla Bassoo, and his two sons. When this newspaper visited the home of the late Bassoo, relatives and friends were in the process of erecting tents for the wake.
Ray Bassoo, the late man’s elder son who is 24, was in shock but spoke to the press on his mother’s behalf.
The young man explained that his father and his mother’s cousin [Seepersaud] left at approximately 8 pm to visit his father’s sister who lives in Le Ressouvenir.
“I called him at about 10:15 pm to ask when he’d be home,” Ray said. “He told me he’d be back in 10 to 15 minutes,” the young man explained.
Ray told this newspaper that later he learnt that his father had been involved in an accident.
He said he and his younger brother rushed to the scene and immediately tried to locate his father.
“When I saw him I rushed to his side and held his hand,” he said. “Don’t leave us daddy,” the young man recalled saying to his father.
Ray explained that he was in a state of shock and his father was rushed to the GPH to receive treatment. “He was in and out of it,” he explained. “One doctor told us that he would be fine but later his condition began to decline.”
The young man explained that he remembers the doctor checking his father’s level of awareness. “They slapped him on the arm and said that he wasn’t responding,” Ray recalled. “His heart failed,” he said and added that a post-mortem examination was to be performed on his father’s body yesterday.
“I watched my father die,” Ray said, his face expressionless. “At approximately 3:05 am I watched my father die,” the young man repeated.
