A re­port­ed COVID-19 par­ty in Las Cuevas end­ed in tragedy ear­ly Sunday when a Barataria woman lost her life and sev­er­al oth­ers were in­jured when the ve­hi­cle they were re­turn­ing home in crashed.

Dead is moth­er of three Crys­tal Julien, 29, of Av­enue North, Barataria.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 4 am yes­ter­day, the dri­ver of a white pan­el van was pro­ceed­ing west along the North Coast Road, Las Cuevas, with two peo­ple in the cab­in and sev­en peo­ple in the tray.

On reach­ing near Pierre Road how­ev­er, the ve­hi­cle skid­ded af­ter the dri­ver went through a patch of grav­el on the south­ern side of the road­way. The dri­ver lost con­trol and the van veered off the road­way and over­turned, throw­ing the pas­sen­gers in the tray out.

Julien died on the scene while the oth­er oc­cu­pants were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex by Emer­gency Re­sponse Per­son­nel (EHS) per­son­nel where they re­main ward­ed yes­ter­day.

The in­jured were iden­ti­fied as:

• Ker­ven Craig, 32, of LP 59 Fish­ing Vil­lage, Mara­cas Bay.

• Stephanie Men­doza, 26, of Hamil­ton Trace, Old Bay Road, Mara­cas Bay.

• Ezekiel Mor­ris, 22, of LP 62 Old Bay Road, Mara­cas Bay.

• Mar­cus Phillip, 36, of Bournes Road, St James.

• Christi­na Hall, 21, of Hamil­ton Trace, Old Bay Road, Mara­cas Bay

• Man­disa Man­ley

• Chris­t­ian Rox­bor­ough, of Fish­ing Vil­lage, Mara­cas Bay.

It is un­clear where the group was com­ing from but there were un­con­firmed re­ports that they were re­turn­ing from a par­ty which took place on­board a yacht off Las Cuevas beach.

How­ev­er, the po­lice could not ver­i­fy this up to yes­ter­day.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Las Cuevas yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, a se­cu­ri­ty guard said mem­bers of the T&T Coast Guard had re­port­ed­ly shut down a par­ty on a yacht and the group was re­port­ed­ly said to be part of that ac­tiv­i­ty.

As such, those who sur­vived may now be fac­ing pos­si­ble charges of breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance which pro­hibits gath­er­ings of more than five peo­ple. Any­one de­ter­mined to have breached this pub­lic health or­di­nance may be found li­able for a fine of $50,000 and im­pris­on­ment for up to six months. Fur­ther, the dri­ver could al­so be charged for trans­port­ing peo­ple in the tray of a ve­hi­cle in con­tra­ven­tion of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Act.

This is the third COVID par­ty to have re­cent­ly tak­en place. Po­lice al­so shut down events in St Ann’s and Waller­field last month.

This lat­est in­ci­dent has again re­sult­ed in a call by po­lice for the pub­lic to ad­here to Gov­ern­ment’s Stay-at-Home re­stric­tions.

One res­i­dent who as­sist­ed in get­ting those in­jured to safe­ty de­scribed it as “trag­ic and un­for­tu­nate,” adding it could have been avoid­ed had the group stayed at home in­stead of de­cid­ing to lime.

“It re­al­ly sad to see young peo­ple act­ing so ir­re­spon­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly in a time like COVID,” the res­i­dent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said.

“They had all kind of in­juries from buss head to bruis­es all over, some of them could not even stand up. Peo­ple were all over the place af­ter the van over­turn.”

T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor Brent Bat­son yes­ter­day called on peo­ple to have more re­gard for life, in­clud­ing their own, es­pe­cial­ly in a time of the pan­dem­ic.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is dis­ap­point­ed that at a time when the coun­try is try­ing its best to pre­serve the lives of per­sons from a dead­ly vi­ral pan­dem­ic, there are per­sons seem­ing to will­ful­ly put their lives and that of oth­ers at un­nec­es­sary risk on the roads lead­ing to very pre­ventable tragedies,” Bat­son said.

He said peo­ple should be ap­pre­ci­at­ing the “gift of hu­man life and fam­i­ly” and fo­cus­ing on sup­port­ing the coun­try through these chal­leng­ing times.

“The fact that per­sons con­tin­ue to en­gage in reck­less be­hav­iour on the road­ways shows a lack of re­gard of what is hap­pen­ing in oth­er coun­tries where the coro­n­avirus has tak­en the lives of so many loved ones.

“We con­tin­ue to ap­peal to all per­sons to ap­ply care, cau­tion and cour­tesy on the roads and obey road traf­fic laws,” Bat­son added.

Fol­low­ing the ac­ci­dent, sev­er­al peo­ple took to so­cial me­dia ex­press­ing both out­rage and sym­pa­thy.

“Sor­ry for the in­no­cent chil­dren who have lost a par­ent. I don’t feel sor­ry for any one of them in­volved be­cause they big and have sense to know now is not par­ty time. But self­ish­ly went to risk their lives now the in­no­cent rel­a­tives have to grieve,” one per­son wrote.

Oth­er ex­pressed an out­pour­ing of con­do­lences for the de­ceased chil­dren who have now been left moth­er­less.

One fam­i­ly mem­ber of Julien who did not want to be iden­ti­fied de­scribed her as a kind per­son who great­ly loved her chil­dren.

She said in­stead of post­ing neg­a­tive com­ments, peo­ple should re­mem­ber that the de­ceased was “some­body’s child,” adding that re­spect for the dead must be shown at all times.

“Please be kind and act as if this is some­one in your fam­i­ly. I am bro­ken,” the rel­a­tive added.