JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A road­side re­pair end­ed in tragedy yes­ter­day when a truck me­chan­ic was killed af­ter his ve­hi­cle was struck by a garbage truck along the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Lennox Syl­van, known to many as “Mr Berry”, was work­ing on his blue truck on the shoul­der of the west­bound lanes of the high­way when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

Syl­van’s ve­hi­cle was rear-end­ed by a garbage truck. The im­pact caused the cab to fall, pin­ning him be­tween the tray and the cab.

The force of the im­pact al­so caused the truck to roll for­ward with Syl­van’s trapped and bleed­ing body. The ve­hi­cle con­tin­ued through the in­ter­sec­tion at Mu­cu­rapo Road, cross­ing four lanes of traf­fic be­fore mount­ing the pave­ment off the west­bound lanes of the high­way, where it even­tu­al­ly came to a stop.

Syl­van was an ac­tive mem­ber of both the Na­tiv­i­ty Church, Crys­tal Stream, Diego Mar­tin and St An­tho­ny’s RC Church, Pe­tit Val­ley.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed both church­es. Mem­bers who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied de­scribed him as a gen­tle­man and a hard­work­ing man ded­i­cat­ed to the Lord Je­sus Christ.

The ac­ci­dent caused ma­jor traf­fic de­lays along the main route in­to and out of west Trinidad as mo­torists slowed to ob­serve the af­ter­math.

Syl­van’s death brought the road fa­tal­i­ty toll to 74 for the year, com­pared with 102 at the same pe­ri­od last year.

Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the fa­tal ac­ci­dent.