ANGRY residents from the Norton street, Lodge area yesterday lit a bonfire across the roadway in an attempt to get an immediate response from the local authorities as regards repairs to the damaged areas on the road. The people complained that it had been almost one year since works were last done on the road, and that holes in the road, coupled with the speeding minibuses, are the leading factors behind several deaths and injuries, the most recent being the death of 44-year-old former athlete Orin Sobers.
Several minutes after angry protestors stormed the road and burned debris, the Public Works Ministry deployed a team to the scene, in order to rectify the situation.
Persons on the scene complained that, for too long, the damaged road and the reckless drivers of the South and Guyoc buses have been creating havoc in their lives, and stifling their freedom to stand on the parapets in front of their homes.
Kay Pompey, reputed wife of the deceased Orin sobers, during an interview with the media, said she is pleading with the authorities to give her some justice and bring those speeding drivers to account for their crimes.
A grieving Pompey said that, while on their way home from attending a function, she and her husband met with an accident that has changed her life forever.
“Me and my husband coming down Norton here, and we gaffing what we cooking, and he said chowmein we gon cook, and I say we gon put mince in it; he said alright. By time I said that, me ain’t know what else happen,” Pompey explained.
The woman was inconsolable as she related her last conversation with her husband. She said that after having that conversation with her late husband, the next thing she knew was that she was lying on the road, with four women around, holding her up.
The grieving woman said that in the midst of everything, she turned to check for Sobers, only to see him sprawled in the middle of the road with his neck twisted on one side as if it was broken.
“I could remember in my eyes when it open little bit, I see four women and like they rubbing me, and when I look so now, I see he in the middle of the road, and he neck twist and he ain’t moving all the time. When I feel my ears, my gold earning gone…,” the woman recalled.
She said that, to date, she is unaware of what kind of vehicle had hit them, but that the people on spot told her that it was an orange coloured bus.
“The bike, we get hit from the back, it at the police station. If you see how it ben up! Up to now I ain’t know is what hit we. I hear they say is a bus, some orange bus… When I reach the hospital, they had tubes in my nose and in my hand. I was catching myself before him. When I look over at he, they had a big bottle of saline on him, something in his nose, and I could hear that he vomiting all the time,” Pompey explained.
The woman said that since she was unconscious, everything was blurred. However, she was later informed of her husband’s death, at around 14:00hrs in the afternoon.
“I want justice! Is not me alone; other people died right down here, a bus man, and he still deh pon de road! They racing too much, the South and the Guyoc buses!,” he lamented.
Sobers has left to mourn his three children and his reputed wife of fifteen years, among other family members.
Meanwhile, Paulette Daniels, another resident of the area, told this publication that her husband had also been the victim of a similar road fatality.
“My gentleman dead up the road, a year done…A minibus kill him. They break he up, put him in the gutter,” Daniels said matter-of-factly.
She said that since her husband’s death, no justice has been served. “Couple more mornings after, the same people that knock down your family, they deh pon the road. And so they got to do something about this!”
Daniels commended the authorities for their immediate response, and said that this goes down in history for the area.
“I believe that if I go back and sleep, I nah gon wake up. Trust meh! Ahm going to die. I never see nothing like this yet in mah life since I is a little girl! From then to now, I living here all my life, and this is the first time,” a demurring Daniels said.
She pointed out that the situation was so serious that pedestrians have to run to get out of the way of the speeding vehicles also.
“If you are on the road and you see them South bus coming down, and they start blowing, they telling you come off the road!”
The residents complained that, even after serious accidents, drivers are not being penalised enough. “When they done kill yuh family, they deh pon de road again; and they does tell yuh how drivers don’t get fired, they does get replaced,” the angry residents protested.
The people are asking that their fellow citizens cooperate to stop the road carnage.

Additionally, persons told the media that, on Monday evening, a man who was travelling along the road was transported to the Georgetown Public Hospital to receive medical attention after receiving head injuries as a result of the manhole.