When Vera Boopsingh saw a body lying on the highway following a vehicular accident, she stopped her car and went to help.
While making a report to the police about the crash, she realised she knew the vehicle involved—it was her brother’s.
During the interview with the media yesterday, Boopsingh could not recall what happened next. “Imagine you stop to help a stranger, you see your brother lying on the ground with a vehicle that is write off…My mind went empty.”
However, it seemed Boopsingh was destined to be one of the first on the scene as she was delayed by incidents prior to her reaching the accident.
When she left the bar she runs in Penal to drop an employee home in Gasparillo, she was called by her husband and returned to the establishment and spent ten minutes speaking with him. Also, on the journey to Gasparillo, she began to feel hungry and stopped to purchase a meal at South Park mall in Tarouba.
It was when they arrived near the bridge that crosses the Guaracara River that they saw the accident. Prompted by her employee, as they realised no one was stopping to render assistance to the person who was lying in the slow lane of the highway, Boopsingh stopped. She called the police.
“I thought it was a stranger so I just stopped to make the report, just to help, there’s a body in the middle of the highway and people could have crushed the body. I just decided to stop and call for help …It was only when I walked up a little bit, when the police asked the plate number of the vehicle, I realised it was him,” she said.
‘Seatbelts save lives’
Around 11.30 p.m. on Saturday, Kamal Bhopsingh, 37, of Claxton Bay, was driving his black Wingroad AD wagon along the north-bound lane of the highway when he collided with the metal railing on one side of the Guaracara bridge. The car then went to the other side of the bridge where it crashed into the railing. Bhopsingh was thrown from the vehicle. He died at the scene.
Constables Deonanan and Ramnarine responded as well as FSSO Hannif and officers from the Mon Repos Fire Station. Constable Frederick, Langley and officers from the Mon Repos Police Station were also present.
Bhopsingh left his girlfriend’s house at Chase Village, Chaguanas. Boopsingh said he possibly ended up in the vicinity of Gasparillo after he went to purchase something to eat before heading to his Claxton Bay home.
He was the lone occupant in the car and his family is unaware what may have caused the crash. No other vehicles were involved.
From the condition of the car and her brother’s body being outside of the vehicle, Boopsingh opined that he was not wearing his seatbelt. She said while he would always wear it, it appeared such was not the case on Saturday. She sent a reminder to citizens that “seatbelts save lives”.
The truck driver was a week away from his birthday, and eager about turning 38 this coming Sunday. “This was the first time in years I would say he was this excited for his birthday. He kept planning, he wanted to go to the river, he wanted to do a cook,…He wanted to do things for his birthday…It was something he was looking forward to.”
He was also anticipating being part of a project that his company was expected to start in Tobago.
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