– supervisor calls it ‘an act of God’
A NEW Amsterdam, Berbice family is calling on the management of GT&T and KFC to quickly determine which of those two companies may be responsible for the thousands of dollars in damages inflicted on their vehicle last Saturday night, when a GT&T utility pole located at the KFC parking lot on Vlissengen Road fell on their Toyota Spacio vehicle while the family was in the restaurant. Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle at the scene on Saturday night, Ariana Beharry explained that the impact caused a massive dent on the top of the vehicle. Both the right and left sides of the vehicle were also dented, several windows were broken, and the height of the vehicle was reduced as a result of the impact.
The woman said that she, her father and other siblings arrived at the restaurant to give her mother a surprise treat for her birthday, which was on Saturday. The family parked the car in the KFC parking lot, and went into the restaurant. When they were finished and were about to leave, she heard family members screaming. She looked and noticed that the wire from the GT&T pole was hooked to a KFC truck departing the delivery area. Within seconds, the pole came crashing down on the vehicle, before bouncing off and damaging another vehicle that was parked next to theirs.

UNABLE TO REASON
She explained that for the next two hours on that Saturday, she and other family members had been trying to reason with the supervisor of the KFC outlet, who failed to offer them any comfort. Ms. Beharry said the supervisor informed her that there was nothing he or the restaurant management could do for them.
After she realized that they were getting nowhere with the supervisor, she requested to speak with someone higher than him, and became annoyed after the man informed her that he could not disturb his boss about such an incident at that time.
She added that the Beharry family would have expected that, being customers at KFC, and parking in the company’s parking lot, they would have been able to get some form of security for their vehicle, and comfort from the company in a situation like this.
She pointed out that the driver of the truck that caused the pole to crash was even attempting to drive away from the scene, but could not move because she and her family blocked the path of the truck.
Speaking to the Guyana Chronicle, the truck driver said he was not aware that his truck had brought down any pole, and he had immediately brought his truck to a halt after he had heard the commotion. He said nothing seemed strange about the positioning of the wires, in terms of them being lower than usual or anything of the sort.

AN ACT OF GOD
Meanwhile the restaurant supervisor, who gave only ‘Mr. Persaud’ as his name, said his company’s position is that the pole is a GT&T pole, and therefore they expect GT&T and the Guyana Police Force to investigate the incident to see who is culpable. He added that his company could not take responsibility for “an act of God”.
Mr. Persaud said the company has the parking lot as a convenience for patrons, and he has no control over who parks there. He reminded that, only the night before, several utility poles in the same block with lines for the Guyana Power and Light Inc. had come crashing down, and that GPL workers on Saturday morning replaced several of them. The store supervisor thinks that the works carried out by the power company may have compromised the integrity of the GT&T pole.
Mr. Persaud further told the Guyana Chronicle that the GT&T pole may have been rotten because of a huge wood ants’ nest that became a fixture on the pole a while back. He said it could be that the pole was indeed rotten and might have fallen at any time.
Nevertheless, it was very unfortunate that the pole had fallen, causing damage to customers’ vehicles.

POLICE ADVICE
Contacted on Sunday morning, Ariana Beharry said she and her family drove the damaged car to Berbice on Saturday night, after visiting the Kitty Police Station, where the police advised them to report the incident to the Central Police Station in New Amsterdam, after which the police would send someone to assess and valuate the damage done to the vehicle.
The driver of the other damaged vehicle did not speak to the media. He informed the Chronicle that the process to fix his vehicle would be a very lengthy one, and he preferred to fix his vehicle himself, since the damage was minor.