Fireman dies in Tobago crash

A mere three days after Asst Commissioner of Police, Dennis Graham issued a plea to the motoring public to desist from flouting traffic laws in an effort to reduce the carnage on the roads, Tobago recorded its fifth road fatality for 2004. Graham made the plea at the launch of the Central Division Traffic Safety Campaign at  Presentation College last Wednesday. The distraught relatives of Kerry Manning, a 22-year-old Fire Officer of Mary’s Hill, Tobago received the news of his death around 3.30 am yesterday via a telephone call from the Fire Services Department. According to reports, around 3 am Manning dropped off co-workers with whom he was liming and was on his way home when he lost control of his vehicle which ran off the road and overturned several times in the vicinity of the Carnbee Gas Station. He reportedly died on the spot. DMO Dr Mentor Melville visited the scene and ordered the body removed to the Scarborough mortuary.

When Sunday Newsday visited Kerry’s Mary’s Hill home, the small village was  in mourning as his “brethrens” mingled about the sports model Toyota Corolla which had been removed from the Old Grange Police Station and placed in a neighbour’s yard. Sunday Newsday was only able to speak with Kerry’s eldest sister Esther Maxwell who told of having caught the first flight out of Trinidad and coming home in a state of shock to “see for myself if he was really dead.” His mother, Sandra Manning, was too distraught over the death of the second of her five children to comment. Kerry, who had been in the Fire Service for less than two years, was described by co-workers as “very dedicated and quiet” and had received a special award during the recently concluded Fire Prevention Week celebrations for his yeoman service during the onslaught of Hurricane Ivan. The former Bishops High School student was also an avid footballer who played with the Main Street Canaan Football Club and the Tobago Fire Services FC.