An au­top­sy at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary has con­firmed that Kalisa Dan­clair died from as­phyx­i­a­tion due to drown­ing, af­ter her car plunged in­to the South Oropouche Riv­er on Mon­day night.

Dan­clair’s sil­ver Toy­ota Axio crashed through a steel bar­ri­er on the Debe Trace Bridge near Ra­hamut Trace and fell in­to the riv­er be­low. The im­pact de­stroyed part of the bridge’s rail­ing. Fire of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue team, and res­i­dents worked to­geth­er to re­trieve her body from the sub­merged ve­hi­cle. A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer lat­er pro­nounced her dead at the scene.

The fa­tal crash oc­curred just me­tres away from a mod­ern but un­used bridge con­struct­ed un­der the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion Project (SHHEPF). Res­i­dents have long ex­pressed con­cerns about the nar­row­ness of the ex­ist­ing bridge and are once again call­ing for ur­gent in­fra­struc­tur­al up­grades to pre­vent fur­ther tragedies.