In­nis Fran­cis

Af­ter con­ced­ing death as his fi­nal op­tion fol­low­ing a ma­jor ac­ci­dent in 2018 that left him par­tial­ly dis­abled, Dale Moolchan stands to­day as liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion and a strong will can car­ry a per­son through even the most dev­as­tat­ing of cir­cum­stances.

It was May 4, a morn­ing that be­gan like any oth­er—calm, clear and sun­lit. Moolchan was on his way to work on his mo­tor­cy­cle when his life changed in an in­stant. A ve­hi­cle struck him, send­ing him in­to the path of chaos where he was sub­se­quent­ly rolled over by three oth­er cars and left for dead on the road­way.

He was just 25. In that mo­ment, his body was left se­vere­ly crushed and his fu­ture, as he knew it, was erased on the as­phalt.

What fol­lowed is a grim ac­count that still lingers with those who lat­er learned of it. None of the dri­vers in­volved stopped. A hit-and-run that doc­tors ini­tial­ly be­lieved he would not sur­vive.

Moolchan’s ear­ly life was shaped by dis­ci­pline. At 15 he be­gan weight train­ing, and af­ter school he en­tered the en­er­gy sec­tor, build­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for hard work and self-im­prove­ment. Over time he earned mul­ti­ple cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, in­clud­ing fork­lift op­er­a­tion, man­lift op­er­a­tion, fire safe­ty, first aid, AED/de­fib­ril­la­tor use, SC­BA (Self-Con­tained Breath­ing Ap­pa­ra­tus) and con­fined-space en­try.

He worked six years at IP­SL be­fore mov­ing to Nu Iron, where he was em­ployed when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred. Along­side this, he vol­un­teered as an emer­gency crew mem­ber and trained at the Emer­gency Train­ing In­sti­tute of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ETITT), be­com­ing a cer­ti­fied emer­gency re­sponse crew mem­ber.

His de­ci­sion to buy a mo­tor­cy­cle came from the strain of dai­ly com­mut­ing be­tween Pluck Road, San Fran­cique, La Ro­maine, and Ch­agua­nas. That choice would un­know­ing­ly place him in the path of dis­as­ter.

“I came up with the idea to have a mo­tor­cy­cle to go to school be­cause of the traf­fic. From Ch­agua­nas to here (home), when you in­clude the flood­ing in Wood­land, it was ridicu­lous. One day I left at four pm and reached home 7.30 pm. I bought the mo­tor­bike to save time, to reach work and school. The night be­fore, a friend told me to take a jack­et. I didn’t, we ar­gued, then I saw it again and put it on. I was in the slow lane when a ve­hi­cle pulled from the fast lane, hit my han­dle and threw me off near Gol­con­da. Three cars ran over my up­per body and dam­aged the nerves on my left side. I was lucky peo­ple saw it, and my cousin was there.”

Even now, the mem­o­ry car­ries weight. The fa­ther of two daugh­ters, now ten and four, speaks soft­ly about what was tak­en from him.

“But I for­give all that. What I would have liked is a bit of re­morse, just to hear ‘sor­ry it hap­pened’. I nev­er got that, and I don’t ex­pect it now,” he said.

In the months that fol­lowed, Moolchan un­der­went ex­ten­sive treat­ment lo­cal­ly and in Colom­bia. His em­ploy­er, Nu Iron, spent more than $1.5 mil­lion on his care. Even then, he was forced to con­front an un­think­able re­al­i­ty.

He ac­cept­ed at one point that he would “have to live with one arm.”

His sur­vival de­fied ex­pec­ta­tions. Af­ter months in an in­duced co­ma, he awoke un­able to recog­nise his fam­i­ly. Con­fined to bed, he of­ten re­sist­ed re­stric­tions. Days af­ter surgery, he was seen buy­ing roti with 56 sta­ples hold­ing his up­per body to­geth­er.

He cred­its much of his re­cov­ery to dis­ci­pline built long be­fore the crash.

Emo­tion­al­ly, the ear­ly stages were dev­as­tat­ing. When he first re­gained aware­ness, he told his wife, Cher:

“I didn’t want to live. I didn’t un­der­stand what had hap­pened. I didn’t even recog­nise my fam­i­ly at first.”

But de­ter­mi­na­tion soon re­placed de­spair. Af­ter spinal fu­sion surgery, he in­sist­ed on walk­ing.

“I woke up and said I want to walk. Doc­tors were un­sure, but when they al­lowed me, I man­aged a few steps. No­body ex­pect­ed me to live, much less walk again. It was a mir­a­cle.”

Com­pli­ca­tions fol­lowed. His left arm lost all func­tion and sen­sa­tion. In­fec­tion de­vel­oped, and even­tu­al­ly am­pu­ta­tion be­came un­avoid­able.

He al­so suf­fered last­ing in­ter­nal dam­age, with his left lung now op­er­at­ing at around 20 per cent ca­pac­i­ty. He con­tin­ues reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing and is al­so a vol­un­tary blood donor.

De­spite every­thing, he re­built. At a rel­a­tive’s gym he worked as fit­ness sec­re­tary and was quick­ly pro­mot­ed to su­per­vi­sor. Then came COVID-19.

Clas­si­fied as non-es­sen­tial, he re­trained in hy­dro­pon­ics and built a sys­tem from scratch.

“It was a lot of sweat and tears,” he said, “but I suc­ceed­ed.”

He lat­er launched three poul­try de­pots un­der the name D Chick­en Boss in Debe, Princes Town and La Ro­maine.

Still dri­ven, he re­turned to weight train­ing in 2022 and 2023, which opened a new com­pet­i­tive path.

Through gym net­works, he was en­cour­aged to pur­sue strong­man and am­putee events, in­clud­ing the Glo­ry Games in Grena­da.

“Some­one told me I have po­ten­tial to place at the Glo­ry Games in Grena­da in De­cem­ber for the light­weight di­vi­sion. I’d al­so like to com­pete in am­putee strong­man events and bring medals home for Trinidad,” he said.

With train­er Adri­an Coop­er, he now trains in­tense­ly for com­pe­ti­tion.

Yet one ab­sence re­mains: the abil­i­ty to em­brace his daugh­ters with both arms. He is present in every oth­er way—school runs, meals, dai­ly life—but the phys­i­cal whole­ness is gone.

Som­bre­ly, he said:

“My biggest re­gret is not be­ing able to hug my kids with both arms. I know how it feels, and I can’t do that any­more. My younger daugh­ter was born af­ter the ac­ci­dent.”

He is prag­mat­ic about mo­tor­bikes but clear about lo­cal road risks.

“I won’t de­monise mo­tor­bikes, but dri­vers here don’t al­ways give rid­ers enough care. Even a small mis­take can change every­thing.”

To­day, he shares his jour­ney as @on­ear­m­dale, not as tragedy but en­durance.

For him, life is de­fined not by loss but by what re­mains pos­si­ble. He con­tin­ues to train, work, raise his chil­dren and push for­ward.

“Your cir­cum­stances don’t de­cide your fu­ture. Dis­ci­pline and con­sis­ten­cy mat­ter more than ex­cus­es.”