A young couple was killed last evening, following a motorcycle accident on the Houston Public Road, along the East Bank of Demerara.
Dead is 24-year-old Lloyd McKend, an employee of Bounty Farm Limited and his partner, 21-year old Roshana Smith, who worked at the Survival Supermarket on Sheriff Street. The couple, who resided at Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, is survived by a three-year-old boy.
Reports are that sometime after 7 pm last evening, McKend, with Smith in tow, was heading home on his motorcycle with a group of friends when he lost control in the vicinity of the a turn close to the entrance of the Gafoors shopping complex. As a result, he slammed into an electrical pole. The couple sustained massive head injuries and McKend reportedly died on the spot. They were rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital by public spirited citizens and they were both pronounced dead on arrival.
Various eyewitness accounts suggest that a speeding car may have clipped the young man’s motorcycle from behind and sped off while persons noted that McKend was speeding at the time and lost control of the motorcycle on the sharp curve.
McKend’s younger brother, Rondel, told this newspaper that he and his brother along with two other motorcyclists were heading home at the time of the accident. He said that he stopped at a gas station in the McDoom area, but realised that his brother did not reach the location as expected.
The young man noted that he and his colleagues decided to return to the Gafoors area, where they spotted a huge crowd as well as a sloth in traffic. He said that he was shocked when he noticed his brother lying on the ground bleeding profusely from the head while his helmet was broken into several pieces. A woman at the scene later transported the couple to the public hospital.
The man’s brother noted that his sibling appeared dead when he was picked up at the scene while Smith was in a semi-conscious state. “I just talk to Lloyd on me phone and we left off together and was to meet up along the road, and now look what happened,” a friend noted at the hospital as tears streamed down her face.
When this newspaper visited Uitvlugt last evening, the community was in a state of shock as relatives and friends got confirmed reports that the couple had died. Smith’s father told this newspaper that his daughter’s death has left a “hole in my heart,” while noting that “she left a son with me.” Another relative reminisced that “only this morning she dress up with a nice boots and modelling it fuh we before she left for work.”
McKend’s relatives later visited the scene of the accident and a few could not contain themselves on the young man’s passing.
In the past, a number of accidents, several with fatal consequences, have occurred along the sharp bend on Houston Public Road.
