(Trinidad Express) CHANDRABHAN RAMROOP would do anything for his cousin, Seeta Bhagwandeen.
Therefore, when she asked him for a ride to a prayer service in Poole, Rio Claro on Thursday, he did not hesitate to grant her the favour.
While returning to their Whiteland, Williamsville home, a truck carrying a cargo of pipes, malfunctioned and crushed the vehicle they occupied. The cousins died at the scene.
Bhagwandeen’s husband, Bachoo Baboolal was the third occupant of the vehicle, a Nissan Laurel. He sustained injuries and was discharged from the hospital.
Chandrabhan’s sister Shoba Ramroop yesterday told the Express that the cousins were “always close.”
She said, “He always by them, he always doing things for them. They have a vehicle but it not working so they asked him to drop them up by her cousin.”
Baboolal who has kidney problems and undergoes dialysis, began feeling ill and the three left for home.
At around 7 p.m. while on an incline along the Naparima/Mayaro Road, Tableland, Ramroop’s car was travelling behind a truck loaded with metal pipes.
Witnesses said that the truck was climbing the hill when its engine malfunctioned.
The truck rolled back onto Ramroop’s car, and the two vehicles came to a stop at the bottom of a hill, in the bushes near a river.
It took at least six hours for the truck and trailer loaded with the metal pipes, to be lifted off the flattened car. The truck was attached to a trailer loaded with at least 100 metal pipes, some 40 feet in length.
Each of the large pipes had to be removed before the medics were able to reach the victims.
The Express was told that after several unsuccessful attempts by a wrecker to lift the trailer, an excavator was brought to the scene.
One of crew tied a length of chain around the load of metal pipes to be lifted by the excavator, but the load did not budge.
Eventually, the excavator pushed at the pipes until they rolled off the trailer.
Scores of villagers flocked to the scene of a crash, and assisted the front seat passenger out of the wrecked car.
The crowd of villagers looked on as paramedics, police and fire officers, and wreckers worked together at scene of the fatal collision.
Ramroop, 45, a father of two sons aged 13 and nine, was married for 15 years. He worked at a hardware in Calcuttta #2. He planned to start construction of his home in Debe. “He wanted something of his own. He always for his children always doing things for his children,” Shoba Ramroop said.
Chandrabhan was the eldest of five children and Shoba described as a jolly person. “You could quarrel with him now and when you go back and talk to him he would be laughing. He always had people laughing, whether at funerals, weddings, wake, anywhere he had people laughing.”
Bhagwandeen, 46, a homemaker who had an adult son, was described by neighbour Anjanee Ramroop as having lived a quiet life.
In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the family was unsure about funeral arrangements. They were hoping to have the post mortems done yesterday and for the funerals to be held soon.
Baboolal’s brother said he collected him after he was discharged from the hospital and broke the news. “When I told him he was bawling and crying … They were together for more than five years.”
He said his brother had injuries to the right side of his rib cage, neck and back. His neck was in a brace following the crash.
He said the family had two deaths in less than two years. He said that a brother in law and a sister died during this time.
The truck was being driven by a 29-year-old man of Fyzabad who gave a statement to police on the incident.
Responding to the crash were ASP Williams, Insp Pacheco, Sgt Sankar and officers of the Tableland Police Station, and fire officers of the Princes Town fire station.
