‘I started to scream for [my son] but he was already dead’
“I know I was in de backseat hugging up my son and when I catch myself again he was dead…the driver was driving wild all the time,” a bruised and swollen Indira Raghubir, one of the survivors of the Wednesday morning fatal Unity accident, told Stabroek News from her hospital bed yesterday.
Raghubir’s son, nine-year-old Indar Raghubir, and Dorrete Hinds of Cumberland, Corentyne, Berbice were killed that morning when a car headed to Berbice lost control, slammed into an electricity pole and flipped into a ditch along the public road at Unity, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara.
Raghubir and the driver of the car, Metanga Cameron, were rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where they were treated and admitted as patients. Cameron’s condition has since improved and the man is currently a patient of the Male Surgical Ward.
When Stabroek News visited Raghubir in the Female Surgical Ward yesterday, purple bruises were visible about the woman’s face and body, her face was swollen and she complained of pain at various parts of her body.
The distressed mother said that her husband, a US resident, is not yet in the country and she had learnt from relatives that he has been unwell since hearing of their son’s death.
“Ow God,” the distressed woman moaned repeatedly, “nobody don’t know how I feel…I hope the police charge that driver because he is the cause that my son and that woman dead.”
The woman, of Blairmont, Berbice, said that she has no recollection of what happened between the time she was holding her son and when she became conscious in the wrecked car. Raghubir said the first thing she did when she regained consciousness was check on her son. With the horror of the memory clear on her face Raghubir said her son’s head was covered in blood and she started to scream hoping it would “make him wake up”.
“I started to scream for him [Indar] but he was already dead,” the distressed mother said. “Is some people I know from Lusignan brought me to the hospital…when we left the accident scene they put my son in the trunk…”
Raghubir said she was in shock after the accident and though she already knew her son had died relatives still tried to tell her that he had survived.
The woman told Stabroek News that Wednesday morning when she left to go uplift her son’s US Visa she had “a bad feeling” but knew she had to go to Georgetown regardless.
“Before I lef’ home yesterday [Wednesday],” she stated, “I just know something bad woulda happen but we still had to come to town because I had to get my son visa.”
Cameron, according to Raghubir, is alleging that the deceased Hinds, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him, fell asleep on him and that resulted in him losing control of the car. However, Raghubir insists that she does not believe this is the case because Cameron, she reported, had been driving in a “reckless” manner.
“He saying that this girl that was in the front seat fall asleep on him and that is why we get in the accident but that is not why,” the upset woman said, “He was driving wild since we leave Georgetown and that is why two people are dead now.”
Meanwhile, Cameron told this newspaper yesterday that he is feeling better. The man was wearing a neck-brace which he told Stabroek News doctors had given to him because he complained of back pains. Besides a small abrasion on the forehead there were no other visible wounds about the man’s body. Cameron was reluctant to speak about the accident.
Initial accounts received by Stabroek News suggested that the driver was speeding along the northern side of the road when the accident occurred. When he lost control of the vehicle, it slammed into the electricity pole on the southern side of the road. The impact split the pole in two and resulted in the car spinning about 240 degrees and flipping, top first, into the ditch.
Cameron, the Raghubirs and Hinds were left trapped in the flipped car in a ditch full of water for several minutes.
Raghubir, who broke her left shin, lost a section of the bone from her left wrist and sustained head injuries and abrasions about the body, stressed that she will not rest until she gets justice.
“I want the police to charge this man,” the woman stated.
