TAIPEI, Taiwan: – Police in Brooklyn say that Vincentian Claudius Durrant died after being thrown through the window of the minivan he was driving. He ended up underneath the vehicle in a crash about 3:30 Sunday morning.
“The van was on top of the driver. They had to jack up the vehicle to get it off him,” an eye witness who declined to give his name told New York Daily News.
The 32-year-old mechanic, originally of Rillan Hill, St. Vincent, died when his 2002 Honda Odyssey, full of clubgoers, struck a pothole and slammed into a telephone pole near the corner of Kings Highway and Tilden Ave. in East Flatbush, New York Daily News reported, citing police.
Four other men from Durrant’s Rillan Hill community and his girlfriend, “Latoya”, were also injured in the accident, younger brother Dexter Durrnat told I Witness-News.
“It’s crazy – I’m absolutely shocked. I’ve never seen an accident this bad,” witness Andy Hewitt told New York Daily News.
The publication said the survivors told investigators they had been at a nearby nightclub in the moments before the crash. Investigators did not expect to file any criminal charges, police said. (Follow I Witness-News on Facebook)
While the New York newspaper said that Durrant died at the Brookdale University Hospital minutes after the crash, his brother told I Witness-News that he died on the spot.
“By the time the paramedic arrived, he was already dead,” Durrant said, adding that his brother died about two minutes after the accident.
He said his brother lost control of the vehicle after it hit a pothole. The minivan flipped, broke the utility pole, and ran into a fence before sliding back onto the street.
“We gotta be strong, but what can we do? We really can’t do anything,” Durrant, who said his family was “trying”, told I Witness-News.
He said his family was planning a memorial service in New York and then his brother would be returned to St. Vincent for burial.
Cousin of the victim Kenwrick Durrant, along with Casmus Francis, Martin Phillips, and Romaldo Jack, all of Rillan Hill, St. Vincent, was also injured in the accident. Police said they were expected to survive.
“R.I.P Claudius and get well me partner [Casmus]. Got the said news this morning and I was like, “… [I] almost lost so [many] of my boys I grew up with in Bigbush, [Rillan Hill]. Just be strong…” Randolph Durham wrote in response to a comment by Francis’ sister on Facebook.
“[I am] praying for my brother who was in a [vehicular] accident early [this] morning; thanking [the] Almighty [that] he made it and praying for his friend’s family who lost a brother and a son,” Francis’s older sister wrote on Sunday.