Prison officer among 2 killed in multiple-car crash in Couva

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

“No par­ent should have to bury their child,” said a griev­ing Nathaniel Prime, the fa­ther of prison of­fi­cer Ker­ron Prime, who was among two peo­ple killed in a mul­ti-car col­li­sion in Cou­va on Mon­day night.

Prime, who sur­vived a road ac­ci­dent 15 years ago and was on du­ty dur­ing the Prison Break in 2015, was head­ing to Cou­va some­time be­fore mid­night when he was in­volved in a mul­ti­ple-ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dent along the South­ern Main Road near Beu­car­ro Road.

He died at the scene along with 38-year-old Dar­ren Lewis, pro­pri­etor of Spot On Car Wash in Chase Vil­lage, who was trav­el­ling in a Maz­da 3.

At Prime’s Chase Vil­lage home yes­ter­day, his par­ents said he vis­it­ed them ear­li­er in the day, as it was their 46th wed­ding an­niver­sary. His moth­er, Lynette, 62, said he brought flow­ers and choco­late cake for her, and al­though they usu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed with a toast, he had plans, so they agreed to do it the fol­low­ing day in­stead.

They were un­cer­tain ex­act­ly where he was head­ing when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred, but he had just left a rel­a­tive’s home. The par­ents said that when they ar­rived at the ac­ci­dent scene, the po­lice kept them at a dis­tance. An of­fi­cer ad­vised them that they should re­mem­ber their son the way he used to be.

Lament­ing that los­ing a child was their worst fear, Lynette said she stood on the road­side and prayed. “I stayed there and prayed to my God to give me strength to deal with my on­ly son.”

Prime, who had 18 years of ser­vice and was last as­signed to the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre, was due to re­port for work on Wednes­day. “So, he would have spent Ole Years in­to New Years,” his 69-year-old fa­ther ex­plained. Nathaniel de­scribed his son as help­ful, hon­est and straight­for­ward, some­one who al­ways stood for what he be­lieved was right. The par­ents said he had planned to com­plete con­struc­tion of his home in 2026.

De­spite the nu­mer­ous road fa­tal­i­ties, Prime’s fa­ther opined that there were more de­cent dri­vers than reck­less ones on the na­tion’s roads. “I think in Trinidad ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple are not crim­i­nals, crim­i­nals are just a few por­tions of peo­ple caus­ing that,” he said. The cou­ple al­so has a daugh­ter who re­sides abroad.

The road deaths came days af­ter a Le­gal No­tice pub­lished on Christ­mas Day saw a rise in the penal­ties for dozens of traf­fic of­fences, in­clud­ing speed­ing, dan­ger­ous dri­ving and a lack of doc­u­men­ta­tion.

Mean­while, the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T ex­pressed con­do­lences to Prime’s fam­i­ly. The as­so­ci­a­tion said he would be great­ly missed by his col­leagues, friends and the wider Prison Ser­vice fam­i­ly.

In a Face­book post, it stat­ed that Prime served with qui­et strength and com­mit­ment, notwith­stand­ing the im­mense chal­lenges he faced dur­ing his life and ca­reer.

“Af­ter sur­viv­ing a se­ri­ous ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in 2010, he con­tin­ued to serve. He al­so car­ried the trau­ma of be­ing among the of­fi­cers who stood in the line of fire dur­ing the Prison Break of 2015—an ex­pe­ri­ence that few can tru­ly com­pre­hend.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said Prime’s sac­ri­fice and ser­vice would not be for­got­ten.

The po­lice ser­vice said the deaths of Prime and Lewis took the road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure to 112 so far for the year, com­pared to 124 for the same pe­ri­od last year.