Cape Town resident Chris Smith is still in shock after learning his daughter and her boyfriend died in a car accident last weekend.
Carly Smith and Marck Lockett were English teachers in Vietnam, but Chris is still unsure exactly how the accident happened.
Carly Smith and Marck Lockett
“We still have so many questions. We don’t know who’s responsible for the accident or if they died on impact. It’s difficult for our family to talk about it at this stage because we don’t really know what happened,” Chris says.
The Smiths aren’t even sure when the bodies of the two teachers will be returned home.
Carly was a paramedic before she decided to go overseas to teach English with Marck. Her death has sent shockwaves through the paramedic community and messages of condolences have been pouring in from all over the country.
Emergency services in Australia have also shared their condolences as the young paramedic had been a mentor to Aussie students who’d come to South Africa for training.
“We woke up this morning to hear the sad news of Carly’s death. She was a respected paramedic from South Africa. She was a wonderful mentor to our students, a beautiful person inside and out and she always lived life to the full,” EMS Australia wrote on its Facebook page.
Chris didn’t want to comment any further but said the family are waiting on more details surrounding the circumstances of their daughter’s death.
Car accident in Vietnam | Credit: Otofun
According to the National Traffic Safety Committee of Vietnam, Over 600 people are killed monthly in traffic accidents nation-wide according to a report released on Wednesday last week.
Although the number of traffic accidents and deaths and injuries had fallen considerably in Vietnam, there were still 1,905 people killed and 3,141 other injured in 4,030 accidents in the first three months of 2019.
Compared to the same period of 2018, the number of accidents fell by 644 or 13.78%, number of deaths fell by 244 or 11.35%, and injuries by 486 or 13.4%, the report said.
Some provinces which saw the highest number of accidents included Gia Lai, Thua Thien Hue, Long An, Hai Duong, Thanh Hoa, Dong Thap, and Vinh Phuc.
The reports showed that most of the accidents were caused by violations on lanes (23.31%), and speed 8.15%).