The mother of the West Berbice pedal cyclist who was fatally struck down around 9:40 pm on Saturday at the nearby No. 12 Village Public Road denies that her son turned suddenly in front of the car.
The lad, 18-year-old Somall Ram Singh called ‘Satesh’ or ‘Beco’ of Woodley Park was returning home from Bath Settlement when there was a collision with the grey Toyota AT 212 Carina motorcar, PLL 7837.
Surujdai Ramin, 33, said she was in Georgetown when she received the news of her son’s death.
The driver had claimed that the cyclist turned suddenly in front of him and he could not have avoided the collision.
One of the passengers of the car had to be rushed to the Fort Wellington Hospital and was later transferred to the Mahaicony Hospital for treatment and an x-ray, according to reports.
Ramin believed that her son did not turn in front of the car because he was struck from the back.
She said that her son’s back was badly bruised and that he sustained injuries to the back of his neck. He was also thrown face down on the road after the impact.
Further, the woman said the back wheel of his bicycle was also badly damaged. “If he bin turn suddenly in front a the car then the middle of the bicycle woulda get hit,” she pointed out.
Residents had said they heard a loud impact and ran to the scene where they saw Singh’s body lying some eight feet from the point of impact.
He succumbed to his injuries some minutes after. The slippers he was wearing were some 30 feet from his body. Ramin said she left last Saturday to go to Georgetown with Singh’s smaller siblings, aged 14, 12 and six-years-old after their stepfather, Aishwarlall Nauth got a painting job in the city.
In tears, the grieving mother she said she left Singh behind because he had recently gotten a job as a labourer with carpenters.
An uncle who said he arrived at the scene some 20 minutes later told this newspaper that he took a long time before he finally got a vehicle to transport Singh’s body to the Fort Wellington Hospital mortuary.
When he got to the hospital he was told that the mortuary was out of order but the driver of the vehicle did not have the time to take it to Anthony’s Funeral Home at Ithaca.
The body was then left in front of the hospital’s entrance where the doctor examined it and confirmed that the lad was dead.
He said after contacting the funeral home, undertakers arrived after
12 am yesterday and removed the body.
Meanwhile, angry residents had told this newspaper via telephone shortly after the accident that the police did not administer a breathalyzer test to the driver of the car involved in the accident.
However, this newspaper learnt from a member of the public that the man and his family were members of her church and would not have been drinking.
She said they were heading to New Amsterdam to visit the driver’s mother-in-law who is holidaying from overseas.