South accident victims get joint send-off

With the autopsies concluded, best friends Ryan Ramnanan and Sachen Teeluckdharry will be cremated alongside one another on Thursday after they died in a car accident on Sunday morning.

Ramnanan's mother, Soma, who described the friends as inseparable, had hoped for a joint send-off when Newsday spoke with her on August 5. She believed this would be fitting, given how close the men were, having forged a lasting friendship over a decade ago when they met at Shiva Boys' Hindu College, Penal.

Funeral preparations began after the autopsy on August 6 at the San Fernando General Hospital.

Ramnanan's brother, Sahadeo Rishi Ramnanan, told Newsday the results said both men died within minutes of the accident from multiple injuries.

"It was a great sigh of relief to understand that they didn't suffer...that it could have been worse," Rishi said.

Ramnanan and Teeluckdharry's bodies were pulled from Teeluckdharry's mangled pickup, which landed in the Cipero River after it ran off the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway on Sunday morning.

Their parents reported the two men missing when they did not return home from a night of liming. They were last seen alive by a friend who passed them on the southbound lane of the highway near Gasparillo around 3.30 am on Sunday. The Hunters Search and Rescue Team found the pickup around 2.30 pm that day.

Ramnanan's brother told Newsday separate funeral services would be held on Thursday for Ramnanan at his Tulsa Trace, San Francique home and Teeluckdharry at his Clarke Road, Penal home.

After this, he said, the funeral processions would rendezvous at the Debe Market at 11 am and proceed together to the Shore of Peace for cremation.