Survivor of deadly crash urges drivers to slow down

The lone survivor of a fatal car accident that left two dead who is now confined to a wheelchair is calling on drivers to stop the speeding.

Seventeen-year-old Parmanand Arjune

On June 20, 2019, along the Naarstigheid Public Road, West Coast Berbice, Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), the driver of a motor car lost control and slammed the vehicle into a tree after which it exploded. The driver and one of the two passengers were instantly killed.
To date, 17-year-old Parmanand Arjune of Bratania still cannot work, but remembers the reckless way his now dead cousin was driving on their way home from a game of pools.
Even as he and his friend asked his cousin to slow down, he accelerated and eventually lost control of the vehicle.

Some of the scars on Arjune’s body

Arjune’s cousin, Dhaniram Dhanraj was the driver at the time. After losing control of the vehicle, he attempted to regain control, but the vehicle veered off the road, crashed into a coconut tree, and immediately burst into flames.
Arjune was saved from the inferno after he flung himself out of the vehicle as it toppled. The teenager cannot remember anything after the car crashed into the tree. He only remembers regaining consciousness at the hospital.
Arjune, who worked in the rice industry, suffered third-degree burns and had been unable to work since. The first three months following the accident, he experienced excruciating pain.
Now he is worried about drivers who take the wheel on a daily basis.
“They have to drive slowly, because when they drive fast, they can lose control,” he noted.
The mangled vehicle remains on the roadside eight months after, with the owner saying that the Regional Democratic Council should remove it.
“Every time I pass, I look at the car and I remember everything. It is not too good,” Arjune told Guyana Times.