By STACY MOORE Monday, June 25 2012

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IN SHOCK: Basdeo Persad, with family friend Sheila Harrinam, yesterday at his Barrackpore home where a speeding, out of control car crashed into the y...

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CELESTINE PERSAD, 48, was killed at her home in Barrackpore yesterday morning while she and her husband Basdeo were discussing how they would spend the day in celebration of their 28th wedding anniversary.

“I married this woman 28 years ago today and it real break my heart that she is now dead, killed on the day we said, ‘I do’,” a weeping Basdeo said.

The woman was walking in the yard of her home when she was struck by a car which ran off the road in an accident police described as reminiscent of last week’s accident in Caura where a car slammed into a bar, leaving five persons dead.

“I can’t believe it. We were talking about plans to spend the day. As she lay on the ground, being crushed by the car on top of her, she asked me to take off her wedding ring from her finger,” Persad, 52, cried.

At about 9 am, Celestine was in the yard of her Ramsabad Trace, Rochard Road, Barrackpore home shortly after eating breakfast with her husband. The couple’s four children live abroad.

Without warning, a red Nissan Almera car veered off the roadway and crashed into the yard with the car slamming into Celestine. Family friend Sheila Harrinam, who was with Celestine, escaped injuries. “It all happened so fast,” Harrinam said. An ambulance took Celestine to the San Fernando General Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

“She told me she wanted to visit her mother first as she (the mother) was sick.

And, then later she wanted to come back home and celebrate the day with her husband. And just so, this red car came out of nowhere and crashed into the yard,” Harrinam said.

“The car knocked a tent down. Then I saw it flip man and slam straight on top of Rose,” Harrinam said. At the time, Celestine’s husband was inside the house where he was conversing with the two women.

A 30-year-old Barrackpore man who was driving the car, has been detained while the car was towed to the yard of the Barrackpore Police Station. “I remember us eating together and she placed a piece of bread in my mouth before walking outside. She was happy and laughing when she went outside.

I was still talking to her while I was inside the house and then I just heard this loud explosion,” Basdeo said.

Basdeo said he found his wife under the car bleeding from her eyes and nose. “I went up to her and she told me, ‘You all see what happened to me?’. She then asked me to take her wedding ring from her finger,” Basdeo said. Investigations are continuing.