18-year-old critical after Old Year’s night accident

Jan 03, 2010 News

– driver in custody

Sharmilla Ramdeo, the mother of 18-year-old Lakram Delima, is clinging to the hope that her son would fully recover from an accident which occurred on New Year’s Eve. Delima was struck down by a motor car on the La Bonne Intention Public Road, East Coast Demerara.

The injured teen in happier times.

The teen is now a patient in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital, after suffering multiple head injuries. He cannot breathe on his own and is also hooked up to a heart machine. His mother was weeping uncontrollably and had to be comforted by relatives, yesterday. The woman said that Thursday evening her son left their Lot 17 La Bonne Intention to purchase a phone card to call his grandmother in Canada.

She said that after an hour passed and he did not return home, she became worried, knowing that was not his normal behaviour. She said that she became more suspicious because the shop was a short distance from their home. “Me and my husband left our home and started searching for Lakram because he doesn’t stay out long,” the woman explained.

Ramdeo explained that her husband drove past the accident scene almost five times before they eventually recognised their son’s jersey on the road.

“My husband saw a pool of blood on the road and we stopped and came out of the vehicle and when I came closer I saw my son’s jersey on the road covered in blood,” the woman cried.

She further told Kaieteur News that just as she was about to enter her husband’s vehicle a Canter truck came up with three males who inquired if she had known the individual who was involved in the accident. The woman said that she was told that a car had struck her son down even though he was in the corner of the road.

The woman said that she was also told that after the vehicle struck her son down a female came out of the vehicle and saw her son’s apparently lifeless body on the road, and shouted to the driver ” that he was dead let’s get out of here”.

The driver who was heading toward Georgetown quickly changed directions. Eyewitnesses who ventured outside to the accident scene all tried desperately to get a vehicle to assist the lad to the hospital.

It was also reported that one eyewitness contacted the Beterverwagting Police Station, who sent a rank who only came and removed the mangled bicycle leaving the lad lying bleeding on the road. An ambulance from the Guyana Defence Force later transferred the injured teen to the hospital.

Ramdeo said that upon arrival at the hospital she inquired from the security about her son’s condition.

Up to yesterday her son was in the Accident and Emergency Unit of the hospital where doctors were desperately trying to stabilise his condition. The doctors at the hospital told the woman that her son was suffering from multiple injuries.

Kaieteur News understands that the driver was apprehended shortly after the accident. The mother yesterday told Kaieteur News that she was informed by the police after 72 hours the suspect would have to be released on station bail. (Latoya Giles)