-two others hospitalised

TWO youths are dead and two others are hospitalised after the car in which they were travelling crashed into a utility pole on Homestretch Avenue on Sunday.
Dead are 19-year-old Dakera Gritten and 21-year-old Tonika Halley, a mother of one, while Troy Glen and Delvern Luthers are hospitalised. Halley’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Joel Rose was treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and later discharged.
The accident occurred at approximately 00:30hrs while the friends were reportedly on their way to a bar-b-que.
Gritten, a labourer at Toolsie Persaud Limited (TPL), died at the scene of the accident. Halley succumbed at approximately 05:30hrs while receiving treatment for her injuries.
The alleged driver has been identified as 19-year-old Rayon Alves, of East La Pentience. Alves is said to have suffered minor injuries, and assisted the other occupants out of the vehicle before fleeing the scene. He was later apprehended by the police at his home and taken into police custody after being treated for his injuries at GPHC.
According to a police report, the overloaded vehicle PVV 1289, was being driven at a fast rate of speed and proceeding west along the southern carriageway of Homestretch Avenue when the driver lost control of the motor vehicle and collided with a utility pole on the northern parapet. The vehicle ended up upside down in the trench running along the side of the Castellani National Art Gallery.

“The motor car toppled several times and ended up in a trench. They [occupants] were all removed from the vehicle with the help of public-spirited citizens and were taken to the GPHC,” the report explained.
According to reports, there are claims that Gritten was the driver of the vehicle; however, his relatives are vehemently denying this allegation.
“My brother cannot drive,” Detica Gritten, sister of the deceased, affirmed during an interview with the Guyana Chronicle.
According to Detica, she last spoke to her brother around 22:00hrs on Saturday just before he left home to attend the bar-b-que with his friends.
“I was on my phone when he came to my room and he said ‘Tica how I look?’ because he was going out, and I said you look good and that was the last time we talk. Around 1 am one of his friend call my mom and then she start shouting out ‘my son could never dead! Dakera could never dead!’” Detica recalled.
Detica recalled that subsequent to last speaking with her brother, he was picked up from the home by the vehicle, and Alves was at the driver’s wheel.
“He came here to pick up my brother. This car came full, Dakera couldn’t even fit into this car. Dakera force he self into this back seat so they double up just to go on this bar-b-que,” she related.

Upon receiving news of the accident, the family immediately travelled to the site, but when they got there Dakera was already pronounced dead and a sheet was covering his body. According to Detica, she spoke with several witnesses on the scene who also told her that her brother was pulled from the back seat of the car, and not the driver’s seat.
Gritten’s father, Deryck Gritten, said he encountered the alleged driver during a visit to the police station on Sunday.
“When we go to the station the police arrest the man. Rayon turn to me and he seh ‘man I sorry for what happen’, and ask me how Kera mother feeling. When I ask he what really happen, he tell me he lose control of the car. The police was [sic] right there when he tell me that,” Deryck stated.
Deryck remembered his son as someone who was always helpful, and mannerly. Dakera leaves to mourn his father, mother, two sisters and other relatives.

Meanwhile, during a visit to the East La Penitence Housing Scheme, Halley’s grandmother, Clarence Springer said she had last spoken to her granddaughter on Saturday afternoon, and last saw her on Sunday morning at the hospital after the accident.
“I get that news foreday morning. When I go to the hospital they said Tonika is getting worst [and] not responding to treatment , so most likely she would pass. They said she get a lot of damage inside, and the lungs full up [with water]. I go to her and I saying ‘Tonica, Tonica’ and praying for her. But she’s not saying anything, her eyes just staring us, and then she started to gasp, and then she just stop,” Springer said recalling her last moments with her grandchild.
Rose, a sales clerk at the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), sustained injuries to his left leg and head, and was discharged on Sunday afternoon with instructions to make subsequent visits to the hospital for follow-ups on his condition.
The Guyana Chronicle was unable to make contact with family members of the other injured persons.