JAGDEO Ramnarine, 36, was killed instantly when a Route 44 minibus hit him at Strathspey, around 06:45hrs yesterday.
The driver of the vehicle, Nandkumar Ishwardat, of Enterprise, has, since, been taken into custody at Vigilance Police Station, also on East Coast Demerara.
Commander of Police ‘C’ Division, Assistant Commissioner Gavin Primo said BGG 3731 was proceeding West along the East Coast Public Road when the tragic accident occurred. Two buses were stationary and the driver of the one involved said he was caught between a rock and a hard place and swerved, Primo said he was advised.
He said the driver reported that his brakes failed and he struck the pedestrian, who was waiting to cross the road, pinning him against a concrete fence. But none of the passengers in the bus suffered any injuries.
At the Non Pariel home of the deceased, family members and friends were already gathered to lend support to his grieving widow, Bibi Rafeek and her three children.
The inconsolable woman said her husband had left for work only minutes before the dreadful occurrence.
“We ate breakfast together and then I heard the gate. So, I guess, that he left to go to work,” she said.
She said Ramnarine, who was, himself, a bus driver, would uplift the vehicle in the morning before returning to take his children to school. She was on her way to work when one of the children called on her cell phone and broke the sad news.
Rafeek said she did not believe when her daughter told her. “I thought it was a lie,” she declared, as she burst into tears.
The widow said a neighbour offered to take her to the scene but, along the way, the traffic was so heavy that she came out of the vehicle and ran, because she did not want them to remove his body before she saw it.
“I had to see him,” she declared, noting that life without Ramnarine would be almost unbearable, not only for her but for their three children aged 11, nine and six years.
“We were all talking and laughing last night and now he is not here,” Rafeek sobbed.
The corpse is at Lyken’s Funeral Parlour awaiting a post mortem.