Mother of three killed in accident

SANDRA GOULD was waiting in anticipation for the birth of her first grandchild in three months time. Her dream was snatched from her yesterday morning when she was killed in a fatal crash at Mc Bean, Couva. 

Still reeling from shock, Gould’s eldest daughter, Debra, who is six months pregnant, said: “She was always rubbing my belly and talking to the baby. Only this week we were talking about names. She wanted ‘Colin’  if it is a boy and ‘Celene’ if a girl.” The deceased was the mother of three — Debra, 26, Nicholas, 22 and Nisha, 14. Gould met her untimely death around 2.45 am after she was flung out of her friend’s car during a head-on collison on the Southern Main Road, Mc Bean. According to police reports, Gould was seated in the front passenger seat of a white Nissan Almera, PBO 6159, driven by her schoolmate, Trevor Wildman, 44, who was taking her to her home at Main Road, California.

Police said Wildman was headed south along Southern Main Road when he collided with another vehicle, a Nissan B-15 Sentra PBP 594, driven by Rudolph Hernandez.  Still wincing in pain at his home yesterday, Wildman told Sunday Newsday: “The other car overtook another vehicle but stayed on my lane and was headed towards us.  I tried to pull away to the right side, but he pulled back on me and we crashed.” Wildman remembered crawling out from the wreck and seeing Gould on the road. “She was still breathing and I felt for her pulse. Next thing the ambulance came and took us to the hospital.” The three crash victims were rushed to the Couva District Medical Facility. Gould was pronounced dead on arrival, while Wildman and Hernandez were treated and discharged with minor injuries.  Wildman, in a sombre mood, said only hours before the accident he and Gould and another female friend had enjoyed a lime at Couva. “We dropped off her friend at St Mary’s in Freeport and I was taking her home. She was in a jolly mood, laughing and enjoying herself.”

By afternoon yesterday at Gould’s home, as relatives were erecting a tent to hold a nightly wake, friends flocked to the house expressing their disbelief in the news that the mother of three was killed. Gould’s sister, Persia, 34, said: “She was a real mother-figure in this house. Our mother migrated to the United States when we were young and Sandra took care of her four brothers and sisters.” Gould, according to Persia, was fixing her travel documents to join her husband of seven years, Peter Gould, in Canada in a few months time and make a new life for herself with her family. “She never wanted to leave us, but we have no choice but to do without her now.” Freeport police are continuing investigations.