It was just after 11 pm on Sunday and a Grove woman and her reputed husband were returning home from a friend’s wedding. The last thing Amanda Singh recalled was their car spinning out of control.
When she regained consciousness, Singh said, she was being hauled from a trench just outside Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) at Diamond, East Bank Demerara. Later, after she was taken to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre (DDC) the woman learnt that her reputed husband, Bhupendra Naraine, had died.
“They tell me he pass away,” Singh told this newspaper from her bed yesterday morning, “but I didn’t believe them… I didn’t want to take their words for granted…and finally when the ambulance come and I ask for he again my cousin tell me that he was in the ambulance behind me.”
Naraine, 27, also known as ‘Porter’ or ‘Robin’, died at the DDC around 11.30 pm on Sunday. Her husband, Singh said, was driving south along the eastern carriageway of East Bank Demerara Public Road at Diamond. He was just about to take the turn he before the bridge at DDL, the woman recalled, when he lost control of the vehicle.
The car, reports reaching this newspaper said, spun out of control, slammed into an electricity pole on the western side of the road breaking it in two and then came to a halt facing the east just outside the DDL fence.
Just before midnight, a DDL employee told this newspaper, police were at the scene of the incident carrying out investigations. The black car which was being driven by Naraine, the employee reported, was badly damaged.
“If you see this thing girl,” the employee said, “the whole front of this car was smashed in and there was a hole in the wind screen (front)…I was inside when I hear this big noise and when I rush to the gate and peep out I see the light post in pieces and this car not too far away…I thought that whoever was in the car was dead.”
The stretch of road where the incident occurred, other Diamond residents told Stabroek News yesterday, is very dangerous. When taking the “turn” along the road motorists are required to slow down but many continue speeding along that stretch of the public road.
When Stabroek News visited Naraine’s Lot 33 Grove Squatting Area, East Bank Demerara home yesterday morning Singh was in bed. The woman told this newspaper that she sustained a wound to the head, left elbow and abrasions to the ribcage area and legs.
The accident occurred a short distance from the DDC – less than two minutes drive. Despite this, Singh said, it took some time before she and Naraine were taken to the medical institution. She received some medical attention at the Diamond health facility, Singh said, and was later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital for further treatment.
Singh was later discharged from that medical institution.
Relatives who were present at the hospital on Sunday night, Singh further said, told her that there were two ambulances present at the Diagnostic Centre but there was no driver available. This newspaper was unable to reach the DDC’s administrator for a comment on this matter. When Stabroek News called his office at 3.25 pm an employee said that the administrator had left for the day.
“If they had a driver and they could rush my husband for treatment then he would still be alive,” the woman said between sobs.
She and Naraine, the woman explained, attended the wedding of his former school mate on Sunday. They were returning from the Herstelling wedding house when Naraine lost control of the vehicle. Her husband, the woman said, “was driving fast” and had taken a few drinks while at the wedding house.
Naraine was the father of two children aged three and five years old. He was the second man who died during a road accident on Sunday. Some time around 6.30 am Robin Alli, of Goed Fortuin, West Bank Demerara lost control of his CR motorcycle and slammed into an electricity police along the Houston, East Bank Demerara road. Alli, relatives said, was returning from a party in Georgetown.
