A woman died and her husband sustained injuries after the Canter they were in ran off the Demerara Harbour Bridge yesterday morning.
Gangadei Persaud, 22, of Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, was sleeping in the passenger seat of the Canter while her husband, Daramdeo Rico Ramotar, 26, was driving. The couple usually go to various markets over the weekend to sell their farm produce and they were on the way to the Plaisance, East Coast Demerara market when tragedy struck. While it was expected to be a normal drive which the couple has been taking for more than a year, it quickly turned grim as Ramotar lost control of the truck on the bridge and the vehicle plunged into the river. While Ramotar was able to escape from the sinking vehicle, he could not assist his wife who was trapped.
“Well I does work the 32 bus so I was here waiting to full my bus around 4:30 when somebody come and tell me that a Canter drive off the bridge but I didn’t pay it much attention,” Ramesh Persaud, Gangadei’s uncle, told Stabroek News yesterday.
He was that he only found out it was his niece and nephew-in-law who were involved in the incident after he rushed to the scene. “I wasn’t there so I don’t know exactly what happened but I was driving earlier and I know the bridge was wet and at the ramp you gotta slow down and there ain’t got any rails there so you could easily fly off,” he added.
He said that when he got to the scene he saw Ramotar sitting on the bridge, crying, and repeating “I couldn’t get her out, I couldn’t get her out.”
“He was bleeding and he had several injuries but all he cared about was getting her out,” Persaud said. The woman was trapped in the vehicle for several hours until the Harbour Bridge team was able to hoist the vehicle out of the water.
Gangadei’s mother, Anjalie Persaud, broke down in tears as she recalled receiving the news of her daughter’s death from a relative. She said that at the time of the call she was at La Penitence market selling and when she rushed to the scene she also noticed Ramotar crying on the bridge.
Ramotar’s mother criticised his treatment by the police following the accident. Rajdei Jagmohan said that even though there was clear evidence that the man was injured the police still chose to handcuff him and keep him in the station a while before he was allowed to be given medical attention. “They treated him like a criminal. Like he do something bad but it was an accident. He was bleeding from different places and his back was hurting but they still had him in handcuffs,” she added.
“It could’ve been a lot worse. Something could’ve happened to them both and their 9 month old baby but it didn’t,” she said, stating that while it is a tragedy she is counting her blessings. She said that while they would normally take the baby to the market, they opted to leave him with her this time.
