Some 12 persons have been taken to hospital in Kingstown after a truck, TQ406, overturned while on the way to an election campaign event in North Leeward Saturday evening.
The occupants of the vehicle, supporters of the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) from North Windward, were on their way to the party’s campaign rally in Chateaubelair.
The accident occurred between Gordon Yard and Spring village.
NDP candidate for North Windward, Lauron “Sharer” Baptiste, told I-Witness News in Chateaubelair that the driver of the truck was too distraught to explain what happened.
“All he is doing is crying,” said Baptiste, who transported NDP supporters in a minivan from North Windward.
NDP president and Leader of the Opposition, Arnhim Eustace, remained with the injured at Spring Village health centre, where they were seen by district medical officer, physician Francis Murray before being transported to Kingstown.
“I would say there are 12 or 13 persons who are injured, but one lady in particular her ankle and so on seems to be badly smashed and she went to the hospital well ahead of the other people,” Eustace told I-Witness News in Chateaubelair.
“Just before I left there, eight or nine people went to the hospital mainly for observation, and there are a number who the doctors are concerned about because they have some chest pains,” he said.
“So you really wouldn’t get a full picture before later on,” the NDP president said.
Eustace praised the skill of the driver.
“I have to credit the driver because where I saw the skid marks, he could have gone over the other side and many people could have died.”
Reports are that as the driver began to lose control of the vehicle, he crashed it into the bank at the left of the left, avoiding the cliff to the right.
“He managed to back the truck on the other side of the corner, which I think really was a masterful thing. He save a lot of people,” Eustace said.
I-Witness News contributor E. Glenford Prescott, reporting from Kingstown, said that the injured person were being taken were x-ray around 8 p.m.
Saturday’s accident was the second vehicular incident to affect the NDP this campaign season.
In December 2014, Edgar Cruickshank, a former council member of the ruling Unity Labour Party, died when a car crashed into an NDP meeting in Clare Valley.
1. A traffic accident is rarely an accident at all but a product of poor vehicle maintenance and/or reckless driving. Eustace is mad to praise the driver.
2. Notice how the police corporal can hardly get into the driver’s seat because of his girth? These obese officers should be put on unpaid leave until they reduce their weight to where they can run 100 metres at under 15 seconds. This guy would drop dead if he tried such a feat.
3. By driving in the back of an open vehicle with no restraints, these people are willingly putting their lives at risk.
C-ben
You are so darm insensitive, that poor innocent girl lost her leg, and her you are looking at someone guts.
What’s the deal, you got some goings on with men’s guts.
Typical of you , garbage in garbage out.
We are Vincentians, here who you call these people.
C-ben-David
I agree with you on this post! Not interested in point two though – He may be very good at his job…However…….
Take a look at the Police car loaded with injured persons…. Look in the back of the vehicle… Am I seeing correctly two persons sitting on the top edge of the Police vehicle… Talk about stupid! They have just escaped from one accident and jump straight back into the same potential situation…. Now that speaks volumes ! Even Forrest Gump wasn’t that daft.
How many more people will be injured or die as a result of this 3rd world attitude?
Government of SVG… Act and BAN travelling in the open backs of vehicles like this because clearly the people have no regard for their own lives to be doing this. You think you can do this in any other grown up country ? You can’t even travel in a car unless you have a seatbelt on in most other countries.
C-ben,
You just learn how to eat with a knife and fork , now you forget way you born.
This is St. Vincent keep your round the way thought to yourself.
You got to be what we call ah ” country bookie “