Just before midnight on Saturday a mechanic who was reportedly speeding along the Coldingen Access Road fatally struck a female special constable. He fled the scene twice and hot-wired his car in the second escape but he was later apprehended by police.
Marva McNabb, 42, of Lot 111 Third Street, Non Pariel, East Coast Demerara was walking home when she was struck by the car. The woman, relatives told this newspaper, had disembarked a minibus shortly before and was under a street light when the incident occurred.
In a press statement issued yesterday afternoon police said that the incident occurred at about 11.45 pm on Saturday. Special Constable 13351 McNabb, according to police, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Investigations, police said, have “revealed that the driver of motor car PHH 252 was allegedly driving at a fast rate when he struck down Marva McNabb who was walking along the roadway.” The driver of the vehicle, police further reported, is in custody assisting with investigations.
When Stabroek News visited the East Coast Demerara location just after 5pm yesterday PHH 252, a white car, was observed parked in the compound at the Vigilance Police Station.
“She didn’t deserve to die like this,” Nicolette Evans, sister of the deceased, told Stabroek News.
McNabb lived at the Non Pariel home, a short distance from the scene of the accident, with two sisters. She was the eldest of five sisters and two brothers. When this newspaper visited the special constable’s home relatives had already made arrangements for a wake and were in great distress.
“This is how we will have to spend the Christmas season,” another sibling said, “in distress. We were told that a post-mortem will be done tomorrow morning (today) and then the body will be handed over to us to make funeral arrangements. We are not sure yet if the driver will be charged after the post-mortem.”
Meanwhile, Evans related that around midnight one of the taxi drivers who worked at the head of the Coldingen Access Road came tapping on their windows to inform them that their sister had been struck down.
The woman said that immediately she dressed and rushed to the scene of the accident. Evans said that by the time she arrived police were already there and refused to let her get anywhere near her sister. McNabb, according to her, was lying on the road with a deep gash to her forehead and she could not tell whether the woman was alive.
“Instead of the ambulance come for my sister the hearse come,” Evans said.
Evans insisted that regardless of whether her sister died on the spot police should have followed procedure and rushed the woman to the hospital. However, she said that McNabb was left lying on the spot for more than an hour awaiting the hearse’s arrival.
“Police are not medical practitioners and no one but a doctor should have decided that my sister was dead,” Evans stated.
Relatives, Evans said, had already arranged for a vehicle which was at hand and would have been able to rush her sister to the hospital in the absence of the ambulance. “We would have been more satisfied if were able to take her to the hospital because right now in this position we do not even know if she was dead when we got there,” she told Stabroek News.
Escaped twice
Evans said that she later learnt from eyewitnesses that the driver of PHH 252 escaped from the scene twice. The first time, she said she had been told, the driver hit her sister and kept driving.
“This man told me that after this car hit my sister it keep driving and he start to drive behind it,” Evans related. “He said that after he reach up with this driver and stopped him he asked him if he know that he hit somebody and the driver told him that he thought he has hit something and not somebody.”
The man, Evans said she was later told, made the driver of PHH 252, who is a mechanic, turn around and return to the scene where McNabb was lying motionless. At the scene taxi drivers who were present seized the man’s car key.
However, after spending a short time at the scene the mechanic then returned to his vehicle, reportedly hot-wired it and fled from the scene a second time. This time the man was able to get away before anyone could follow him.
Sometime after 9 am yesterday, Evans said, police were able to apprehend the mechanic. “We were at the station dealing with things when they brought him (the driver of PHH 252) to the station,” Evans said.
The woman further added that the spot where McNabb was hit was near to a street light and witnesses later reported that the special constable had been walking in the corner of the road.
“You know I am so upset…is this man heartless? You mean after he hit her he couldn’t even stop and take her to the hospital or something,” the distressed sister queried.
Evans last saw her sister on Thursday evening. She explained that they both worked odd shifts and would hardly be at home during the same hours. On Thursday, Evans recalled, her sister had been cleaning her room, putting up curtains and decorating the house for the Christmas season.
“She was supposed to bake her black cake today (yesterday),” Evans lamented.
