Mother dies, daughter injured in Corentyne accident

An accident in Corentyne, Berbice has left a mother of one dead as family members were returning from the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) Monday morning.

Dead is Soorajine Surjraj, also called “Pammy”, of Lot 13 Grant 1805 Crabwood Creek, Corentyne.
Injured are Surjraj’s only child, Nesa Sukhra, 15, and her 70-year-old mother, Khemnie Surjraj. Fifty-two-year-old Surjraj, a gas station pump attendant, along with her daughter and mother, were returning home after taking her sister to the airport to board a flight back to the US.
The car was being driven by a family friend, who works as a mechanic, but was moonlighting as a taxi driver. The group left Crabwood Creek on Sunday afternoon about 17:00h. However, the accident occurred at Number 58 Village, Corentyne about 07:30h on Monday. Reports are that the driver of the car, HC 2217, might have fallen asleep at the wheel, which resulted in him losing control of the vehicle and driving into a lorry, GMM 9207, which was parked on the eastern parapet.

The impact sent the lorry forward about two meters, causing it to hit another lorry and moving that lorry about one metre.
As a result of the impact, the driver, Avenash Premnaught, 25, also of Crabwood Creek, sustained injuries and was taken to seek medical attention.
The impact also caused the dead woman’s mother to suffer a fractured leg and her daughter, minor injuries. The daughter was treated at the Skeldon Hospital and sent away.
Kumar Tulsi, who lives in close proximity to the scene of the accident, said he was at home when he heard the impact and rushed to the scene. According to him, by the time he reached the scene, the grandmother and daughter were already out of the car. He said the driver was sitting on the ground and seemed to be in some discomfort.

“Me see one auntie and a young girl and she bin ah cry… when I look in the back I see the next auntie lie down, she didn’t moving; like she did done dead already. I hear the driver tell the Policeman that he really can’t say how come this thing happen. Nothing did wrong wid he, but all what I hear he say is he stomach ah pain am and the Police carry him to the hospital,” the 57-year-old villager related.
Another villager, Sace Baddel was at a bus shed nearby at the time of the accident. He said he assisted in pulling the dead woman from the car, but she appeared dead.
He said after the impact he heard someone shouting for help and he pulled the teen out from the wreckage first, then her grandmother. He said he did not initially see the third passenger.
“She get a cut to she head and a cut through she breast,” he related.
Meanwhile, the now dead woman’s sister, Savitry Persaud, 65, said the news quickly reached their home.
“Is very hard for us, because it is a shocking something,” she related.
Surjraj’s father died several years ago following a road accident and two of her siblings have suffered injuries as a result of road accidents.

The driver of the car is currently assisting the Police with the investigation.
In 2016, a man was killed at the same spot when a car swerved from an animal on the road and in an attempt to avoid hitting a parked lorry, struck a villager.
Several villagers voiced their concerns over the dangers posed by parked lorries on the road shoulder.
At Number 58 Village, a lorry has been parked on the road shoulder for the past five years. It was the scene of a fatal accident in 2015, in which a man, who lived at Number 70 Village, was killed. (Andrew Carmichael)