The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

TWO months after he was allegedly hit by a truck during the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival Road Fever March, a 24-year-old man has claimed he has been unable to obtain a police report concerning the matter.

Theo Saunders claimed he has recurring headaches and total numbness in his right leg from the knee down, but is unable to seek legal recourse due to the stalled report.

Mr Saunders, an unemployed father of a year-old girl, claimed a truck from a local gaming house knocked him down as he watched the road march on May 6, but alleged operators of the vehicle continued on with the parade.

“I was proceeding north up Nassau Street and [a web shop] vehicle, they were entertaining the crowd so they were swerving in the road and they ran up behind me. They never waited to get any information, they fled the scene and finish enjoying themselves,” he claimed.

Mr Saunders, a march spectator, said at the time he did not recognise the company representative who allegedly got out of the vehicle and spoke with him briefly while he lay on the ground.

The Tribune has withheld the name of that person because they could not be reached up to press time.

When contacted, a spokesperson for the web shop in question said: “We are not aware of it [the incident] as we have not received any legal documents or notification of legal action.”

Mr Saunders admitted he did not reach out to the company because he was advised he would need a police report to bolster his claim. He expressed frustration and claimed he has been repeatedly turned away by officers at the Traffic Division.

Mr Saunders said: “[The representative] said ‘don’t worry we gone give you this money, just get up.’ I was like really? I just get hit, and you just telling me this random amount of money and I get off the floor? I couldn’t move, after that the crowd got so thick I never saw when the vehicle moved.

“I remember getting hit and being on the floor. But people who was out there watching said the vehicle was still on the parade so obviously it wasn’t no concern to them. I don’t even know if the vehicle ever stopped, I just know he came on the side of me and offered me money. He never brandished no cash, he just shouted this figure,” he claimed.

Mr Saunders told The Tribune that he waited on the ground for more than an hour before an ambulance weaved its way through the crowds to take him to hospital.

“The initial injury diagnosis when they examined me at PMH (Princess Margaret Hospital) was poly-trauma,” he said. “When I got hit, the right side of my body was completely dead, I could move it but I had no feeling, and to this day I have no feeling from my right knee go down. I hit my head as well, and I have off and on headaches.”

Attempts to secure a comment from the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s Traffic Division were unsuccessful up to press time.