AT least two persons injured in Sunday afternoon’s  smash-up between a minibus and a motor car at the corner of D’Urban and Smyth Streets in the city remain warded at the Georgetown Public Hospital with potentially debilitating injuries. They are Immam Wilson, 23, conductor of the route number 41 minibus BLL 5601 which was travelling from the Stabroek bus park to Guyhoc Park, East La Penitence, and Robert Hendricks, 18, of 163 Meadowbrook Gardens.
Wilson injured both hands, with a deep puncture to his right wrist.Wilson was at the time sitting in the conductor’s seat and there were a pregnant woman and a man next to him, both of whom were also injured.
Meanwhile, Robert Hendricks, a mason, sustained injuries to the left arm and will also be unable to use his hand for a long time.
Hendricks recalled that he had left his Meadowbrook home and gone to the city to have his hair cut by the barber.  However, when he got there the barber’s shop was closed.  He went to the bus park, joined the Guyhoc bus and was returning home when it crashed.
The men recalled that the accident happened so fast, there was no time to avoid it.  Wilson said they were heading east along D’Urban Street, and as they approached Smyth Street, he recalls hearing the bus driver exclaim, “Watch he!”  In an instant they heard a bang and felt the impact.  The car, heading north along Smyth Street, had jumped the major road and crashed into the side of the bus, sending it skidding on its right side, with the injured commuters bundled together on the inside.  Because the vehicle was lying on the conductor’s door, it took a fire tender from the Central Fire Unit, Stabroek, to turn it over and rescue the driver and passengers.
The driver of the motor car which caused the accident abandoned his car and fled, but was later apprehended and taken into custody by the police.
The minibus operatives, as well as the commuters who spoke with this newspaper, all refuted claims made by another section of the media that the bus was packed to capacity.  They said the bus had left the park with three seats empty, since around that time on a Sunday afternoon it is difficult to get a full bus leaving the park.