A fatal single-vehicle traffic collision has claimed the life of a 28-year-old La Horquetta resident in the early hours of Thursday on Trinidad’s east coast. The incident unfolded on Coronation Road in Sangre Grande, where the vehicle driven by the victim careened off the roadway and plummeted into a deep roadside ditch. The victim has been formally identified by local law enforcement as Joel Wharwood, a resident of George Goddard Lane, Phase Two, La Horquetta, Arima.
Emergency protocols were triggered after a passing female motorist made an unscheduled stop at the Sangre Grande Police Station shortly after 2 a.m. to report a disturbing sight she had encountered. The woman told duty officers that as she was traveling along Coronation Road, she spotted a silver Nissan Versa resting at the bottom of the ditch, with an apparently unconscious and unresponsive body positioned just outside the wreckage.
First response teams, including police officers and emergency medical personnel, rushed to the crash site immediately after receiving the alert. When they arrived, they located the wrecked passenger car roughly 30 feet below the edge of the road, nestled in the steep ditch. Search and rescue personnel found Wharwood lying supine near the front of the crashed vehicle, suffering from a number of visible traumatic injuries sustained in the impact. Initial investigations have confirmed that Wharwood was the only person inside the car at the time of the crash, with no other passengers involved. Local authorities have not yet released further details on what may have caused the vehicle to leave the roadway, and the investigation into the exact circumstances of the crash remains ongoing.