On the evening of Saturday June 24, a supervisor at Casela Park was killed in an accident on the Rivière Noire road near the Clarence cane field. The motorcycle he was riding collided head-on with a police 4×4 attached to the Western Divisional Supporting Unit (DSU). Motorcyclist Wendy Varden Poollay, a 42-year-old resident of Bambous, did not survive his injuries.
The accident occurred shortly before 11pm on Saturday June 24. The DSU vehicle was driven by a 49-year-old policeman from Highlands. According to him, it was raining, and the road was not well lit, when a Suzuki motorcycle suddenly emerged from a side road in front of his vehicle, which was travelling in the direction of Rivière Noire. A police chief inspector travelling in the vehicle was injured. A Service d’Aide Médicale d’Urgence ambulance was called to evacuate the unconscious motorcyclist to Victoria Hospital, Candos. After receiving treatment, he was placed in the intensive care unit under artificial respiration. The 40-year-old died in the early hours of Sunday morning, June 25. His body was autopsied at the Candos Hospital morgue by Dr. Sheila Jankee-Parsad, Principal Police Medical Officer. She attributed the cause of death to craniocerebral lesions.
The police officer involved in the accident was given an alcohol test by an Emergency Response Service officer at the Flic en Flac police station. He tested negative for alcohol. On Monday June 26, he was brought before the Bambous court on a provisional charge of manslaughter, and subsequently released on bail.
