A 20-year-old motorcyclist died following a crash at Strathspey, East Coast Demerara on Saturday night while his pillion rider is currently being treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital for his injuries.
Dead is Leon Benjamin of Bare Root, East Coast Demerara, a part-time construction worker who also sold fruits and vegetables.
Benjamin’s mother Meshele Pilgrim, a single parent, told the Stabroek News that she returned home around 18:00 hrs on Saturday after doing some back-to-school shopping and asked his siblings where he was. She said she was told that he had left and said he would be coming back.
Some time later, she said, she received a call from another son who resides at Linden. He informed her that his brother had been involved in a crash in the area of the gas station at Strathspey around 19:00 hrs. She said she later learned that her son had left with a friend on his motorcycle to go to Annandale.
Pilgrim said she also learned that they were on their way back home, when, at Strathspey, the side window of a car jammed her son’s motorcycle. Benjamin then lost control of the motorcycle, she was told, and both he and the pillion rider ended up across the road. She was also told that the driver of the car had exited his vehicle, looked at the injured young men, then went back into his car and drove away.
Pilgrim said she was surprised that her son was towing his friend because he was not supposed to be towing anyone.
Benjamin was pronounced dead at the scene while the pillion rider was transported to the Georgetown Public Hospital and admitted owing to the seriousness of his injuries.
Benjamin was the seventh of eight siblings. He was described as a loving and caring person whose fruit and vegetable vending sometimes saw him with his mother at Bourda Market or walking and selling with his brother at the Stabroek Market.
