Cindy Raghubar
GML ENTERPRISE DESK
Many people forget the tragedy of fatal road accidents and fewer remember the families left behind.
But for those who survive, empty houses and memories remind them each day of their losses.
Rikash Ramcharan, 19, lost his parents and brother to a cross-median crash in July.
He had to abandon his studies at Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (Cape) level earlier this year to find a job, and concentrate on taking care of his younger sibling, 14-year-old Nigel Ramcharan.
Both boys were orphaned after an accident along the Uriah Butler Highway claimed the lives of their mother, 36-year-old Nanda Ramcharan; father, 47-year-old Mahadeo Ramcharan; and brother, 13-year-old Nyron Ramcharan, earlier this year.
A man driving a garbage truck lost control of his vehicle after the truck was hit by a Lancer motorcar on the northbound lane, crossed the median and crushed the family’s blue Honda Civic travelling on the southbound lane.
It was July 29, and the three were returning to their Sookhan Trace, Barrackpore, home from the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex where Nyron had undergone his weekly dialysis for a chronic kidney condition.
Rikash and Nigel were not with them when tragedy struck.
Now, the pair live alone in the incomplete house started by their father.
Although the boys recently received most of the material necessary to complete their home from a generous San Juan man, they have no means and not nearly enough money to supply the labour cost.
Rikash said “things have been rough” since the accident but he was grateful for all that the Good Samaritan had given to them. “Is just for me to provide the labour.”
He said after the accident they were promised help from both the then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and former member of Parliament for that area Clifton De Coteau. Government help never came.
Rikash recalled that he went with an uncle to the MP’s office every week for two consecutive months and was not able to meet De Coteau a single time.
Rikash does not intend to give up because he wants to “try and put a smile on Nigel’s face.”
He told the GML Enterprise Desk, “My brother, he don’t show it but when I watch in his eye, I could see the pain.”
Rikash said the loss has been especially difficult for Nigel because, as younger siblings, Nigel and Nyron were inseparable.
“Sometimes he does be by himself and you does just see the pain in him that he miss them a lot. Now without them it does be so hard. We does have to battle for ourselves. I have to take care of Nigel, grow him up good.”
The teenager who now acts as brother, mother and father told us he hardly sleeps at night as thoughts and memories of his family keep him awake.
“Every day goes by I think about them, in work all the time, how life would have been with them.”
A smile seemed to creep across his lips, but left as quickly as it came. “There is a nice big banner picture home with the three of them, we look at it and we talk to them...Sometimes you does feel like they are right there with you, and then, is just like that everything gone.”
Following the accident, the teenagers received one session of counselling.
Need for closure
President of road safety awareness group Arrive Alive Sharon Inglefield, who lost her son to an accident, believes “every fatal collision is preventable” and avoidable.
She said an increasing number of breadwinners were being lost through fatal road accidents.
The GML Enterprise Desk analysed the T&T Police Service’s records and statistics of road traffic accidents for the year so far, and the data show that more than half of the total number of people killed were younger than 36 years. So far, 143 people have been killed for 2015 in road accidents—112 men, 21 women and ten children.
Inglefield blamed a substandard judicial system for the stresses and inability of families to get closure following the death of loved ones. “You’re talking about a lack of closure for that family because they feel something should be done through our court system...the cases are not being called, that gap needs to be filled so that people understand that compassion is needed in doing their jobs and the responsibility is huge.”
Victims, she said, needed to know that their interests were being considered. Inglefield urged the T&T Police Service, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the relevant authorities to ensure these families got the necessary support.