Trinidad: Driver dies attempting to avoid downtown traffic

(Trinidad Guardian) In an at­tempt to es­cape the grid­lock traf­fic which snarled all routes in­to and out of the cap­i­tal city on Sat­ur­day, a de­liv­ery dri­ver lost his life af­ter he at­tempt­ed to use an al­ter­na­tive route.

A few hours af­ter he col­lect­ed a ship­ment of pre­mi­um al­co­holic drinks from his em­ploy­er to be de­liv­ered to An­gos­tu­ra’s Sol­era branch in Wood­brook, Johnald Smith lost con­trol of the loaded ve­hi­cle and ca­reened off a precipice along the La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant.

 
The fa­tal ac­ci­dent which oc­curred around 12.05 pm in the vicin­i­ty of the Hilton Trinidad, al­so led to a ma­jor traf­fic jam along the La­dy Young Road as mo­torists strained to catch a glimpse of the res­cue work be­ing done by po­lice and fire of­fi­cers.

Smith, 34, of Arou­ca who was em­ployed with ICR Trans­port So­lu­tions Ltd, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, died as he at­tempt­ed to jump from the truck as it skid­ded off the road.

His loader, 19-year-old Ker­ry Mclaren, of Mor­vant, man­aged to es­cape.

Up to 4 pm Sat­ur­day, Mclaren re­mained at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal nurs­ing mi­nor in­juries.

 
Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian at the scene, Mclaren cried as he was be­ing at­tend­ed to by Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians Don Brown and Lyn­ford Lewis.

Con­firm­ing Smith had used the al­ter­na­tive route in an at­tempt to reach their des­ti­na­tion quick­er, Mclaren said, “As he round­ed the cor­ner by Hilton, we were talk­ing about the traf­fic jam and how the roads were packed with cars head­ing in­to Port-of-Spain.”

Mclaren, who has been em­ployed with the com­pa­ny for the past year, said he on­ly be­gan work­ing with Smith for the past four months.

He de­scribed Smith as a man who loved foot­ball and had been ex­cit­ed to view Sat­ur­day’s Eng­lish Pre­mier­ship match­es.

Mclaren said Smith was “re­li­able and de­pend­able…he nev­er took any chances.”

Min­utes af­ter the ac­ci­dent oc­curred, fire ten­ders from the Wright­son Road Fire Sta­tion and the Bel­mont Fire Sta­tions re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly. They al­so had to call for back­up.

Mean­while, po­lice of­fi­cers from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion in­clud­ing PCs Bazzey and Hors­ford had their hands full en­sur­ing or­der and keep­ing cu­ri­ous on-look­ers at bay.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, they were forced to call for help af­ter near­by res­i­dents be­gan loot­ing box­es of dam­aged items as they ac­cessed the wreck site via routes near and around the Bel­mont Sec­ondary School.