Almost four years ago, housewife Nanda Ramcharan saved the life of her nine-year-old son, Nyron, by donating one of her kidneys.
Yesterday at around 1.45 pm, Ramcharan, 36, Nyron, now 12, and her husband Mahadeo, 48, were killed when a garbage truck landed on top of their car on the Uriah Butler Highway near the Endeavour Flyover in Chaguanas.
Police public information officer Inspector Wayne Mystar said the accident occurred as Mahadeo Ramcharan was driving his vehicle, PBE 5627, south along the highway shortly after 1 pm. A white Mistubishi Lancer on the northbound lane collided with a blue garbage truck which spun out control crossed the highway’s concrete median and landed on to Ramcharan’s car.
Police and firemen used the jaws of life to cut open the Honda and remove the occupants. All three were dead at the scene.
Mystar said the driver and loader of the garbage truck were hospitalized. The driver of the Lancer, who was not injured, was taken to the Chaguanas Police Station.
Yesterday relatives, some of whom lived close to the Ramcharan’s home at Ramsabhag Trace, Rochard Road, Penal, were overcome with grief.
Relatives said at the time of the accident the couple was returning home after taking their son to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex at Mount Hope for dialysis.
Nyron, who would have celebrated his birthday in October, was the country's youngest recipient of a kidney transplant.
The couple had two other children Rikash, 17, and Nigel, 12.
Marilyn Sundar-Rampersad, one of Ramcharan’s six sisters, said her sister had a premonition last week which had her worried.
Ramcharan had been very involved in the wedding of Sundar-Rampersad’s son on Sunday, but on Monday night she told relatives about two very disturbing dreams she had on consecutive nights.
She felt the dreams and an incident in which a large snake fell in front of her as she helped prepare the tent for her nephew’s wedding were warnings that something bad was about to happen.
Ramcharan’s mother Bernadette Sundar, 68, said she saw her daughter just before she left for the hospital when she dropped by her house for Indian delicacies from the wedding to share with the nurses.
Sundar said the family found out about the tragedy when a relative saw the accident on Facebook. Family members immediately rushed to the scene.
Commenting on the triple fatality yesterday, Sharon Inglefield, president of Arrive Alive, said: “We need the speed management law passed by the president urgently and speed guns in the hands of our law enforcement officers.”
- With reporting by Shastri Boodan