Friends die in crash

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Po­lice of­fi­cers and road traf­fic safe­ty stake­hold­ers are urg­ing dri­vers to take their time on the road­way.

This af­ter an ac­ci­dent claimed the lives of two vic­tims in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, the sec­ond time in as many days that a ve­hic­u­lar smash-up had claimed the lives of more than one vic­tim.

Chill­ing screams pierced the Sun­day morn­ing si­lence in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, fol­low­ing a road ac­ci­dent that claimed the lives of two cowork­ers.

Key­on “Sprang” Nim­blett and Shak­ka Rivers, both from Sig­nal Hill, were said to be “like broth­ers” and nev­er went any­where with­out each oth­er.

Po­lice said the men, em­ploy­ees of REM Elite con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, were head­ing to a job site in Pem­broke around 10.15 am when the ac­ci­dent hap­pened.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Nim­blett was dri­ving his blue Mit­subishi Lancer east along the Claude Noel High­way when he swerved to avoid a col­li­sion with an­oth­er ve­hi­cle. Po­lice said the Lancer hit a util­i­ty pole, went air­borne and then crashed in­to an im­mortelle tree, killing both men in­stant­ly.

It was the sec­ond ac­ci­dent re­sult­ing in mul­ti­ple deaths in two days.

On Sat­ur­day, artiste Mar­ques “Ras­ta Marky” Fi­garo, 38, and for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-17 foot­baller Tyrek James, 27, both of Mara­bel­la, died with­in min­utes of a crash along the South­ern Main Road in St Mar­garet’s.

As news spread about yes­ter­day’s crash, scores of friends and fam­i­ly of the de­ceased ar­rived at the scene to con­firm their worst fears.

“Where Sprang? Where Sprang?” a neigh­bour and close friend of Rivers shout­ed re­peat­ed­ly as rel­a­tives rushed to con­sole her.

Tears flowed freely from the eyes of Ri­vas’ broth­er Dwight David­son, who stood in dis­be­lief, shak­ing un­con­trol­lably as he held a cig­a­rette in his hand. He said Ri­vas was a fa­ther of one and de­vot­ed to his on­ly daugh­ter, who is prepar­ing to write her CSEC ex­am­i­na­tion.

An emo­tion­al Nigel Taitt, elec­toral rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill, said the tragedy had hit deep­er than pol­i­tics.

“This goes be­yond area rep­re­sen­ta­tive be­cause Shak­ka is my close cousin and Sprang is my very close friend. Right now, I am emo­tion­al­ly hurt be­cause I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to get this news,” Taitt said at the scene.

Taitt said both were “very good men and help­ful in their com­mu­ni­ty.”

REM Elite own­er Ron­dell Mor­ris said the ac­ci­dent had left him shak­en, as he spoke to both men pri­or to the ac­ci­dent.

“I came off the phone like half hour be­fore, mak­ing sure they got the ma­te­ri­als to go up on the job site,” he said.

Mor­ris said he knew both men for over a decade but they on­ly start­ed work­ing for him ap­prox­i­mate­ly four years ago.

Friends of the duo said both were skilled me­chan­ics, hard work­ers and nev­er in any trou­ble.

Ri­vas’ un­cle Williams Thomas broke down in tears as he spoke glow­ing­ly about his nephew.

“He nev­er give me a dis­re­spect. He al­ways there to help out any­body in any form or fash­ion. He will give you his last dol­lar if you asked. If I call on him to do some­thing for me he nev­er turned me down even though he had things to do,” he said.

He said the tragedy was a dou­ble blow to the fam­i­ly, as Rivers’ moth­er An­tonette Thomas died in Oc­to­ber last year af­ter kid­ney fail­ure.

Thomas said it was a mys­tery to the fam­i­ly when they found out Thomas had on­ly one kid­ney when she fell ill last year. He said rel­a­tives lat­er learnt that Rivers, whose twin sis­ter died at child­birth, was the re­cip­i­ent of his moth­er’s oth­er or­gan.

“He had sick­le cell and she do­nat­ed one of her kid­neys to him. She do­nat­ed one of her kid­neys to him and no­body knew. That was a se­cret and we on­ly heard about it when she had kid­ney fail­ure,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the fam­i­ly’s on­ly con­so­la­tion was that his nephew and best friend died to­geth­er.

“It so sad to know that young peo­ple just dy­ing. I don’t know if speed was the fac­tor, over­tak­ing was the fac­tor. At least he died with his friend.”

Cpl Car­va Vin­cent, who is in charge of the Traf­fic Branch, To­ba­go, yes­ter­day plead­ed with dri­vers in To­ba­go to slow down.

“Based on what we are see­ing here, is that speed was para­mount in this ac­ci­dent,” Vin­cent said.

How­ev­er, he said there were oth­er peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion about the ac­ci­dent who had de­clined to talk to the po­lice.

“I am con­tin­u­ous­ly im­plor­ing dri­vers, To­ba­go is a small space, there is no need for speed....This morn­ing two per­sons died be­cause of speed. Take your time, you will reach where you have to go.”

He ad­vised the pub­lic to leave ear­li­er if they have to reach their des­ti­na­tion at a par­tic­u­lar time.

“Look, you have per­sons (in pain). Their fam­i­lies are mourn­ing right now with the death of these young in­di­vid­u­als. Take your time, please.”