Family mourns for Mario Peters

Gail Peters is trying to be strong for her family. But being strong is difficult after losing your 24-year-old son.
In Bayville, St Michael, at the family home of the late Mario Peters, scores of family members and close friends gathered to lend support to his grieving parents, Junior and Gail Peters, who were forced to watch as their son’s life changed in a matter of seconds.

“It is not an easy thing for the family,” said the deceased man’s mother, who told Barbados TODAY, “This is the first incident like this that has ever occurred in the family and we are really trying to support one another . . .”
Mario’s head was severely injured when his motorcycle collided with a taxi on January 3 just outside the Harbour Lights Night Club while he and a friend were riding along Bay Street.
He was knocked unconscious but remained alive and unresponsive for the next 16 days, until he quietly passed away just after 11a.m. on Sunday following days of treatment in the surgical Intensive Care Unit of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

“We are all trying to cope with this very tragic news. It’s not a situation like he was ill and passed away. It was sudden death,” said his mother, who throughout the interview remained very composed. The grieving woman however admitted that the days following the accident had been very “traumatic” for the family, “even watching him in the condition that he was in from then,” she said.
The “loving” man, a former student of Arthur Smith Primary and St Leonard’s Boys would battle for his life for more than two weeks as family and friends hoped and prayed that he would emerge from his comatose state.
Although he did not, his mother told Barbados TODAY that while her son’s death was unexpected, it happened while doing what he loved.
“His love was a motorcycle. At the time [of the accident] he was riding what they described as a Honda 80, a small motorcycle. But he always had a love for motorcycles,” she said.
In fact, she revealed that Mario, “who could ride a bicycle, from before he could walk properly,” had proven himself a very adventurous person from a young age.
“From as young as I can remember, Mario was always a person who was into activities. He always had a bicycle and by age five or six he was a member of DC Wheelers [a biker group based in the Pine, St Michael,” she said.
Mario, who worked at his father’s electrical business, was said to have been very good with his hands and “could pick down and put up things very easily.”
The 24-year-old father was described as having “a very strong but a loving personality,” especially for his family and his daughter, three-year-old Kamaria Peters.
“He loved his daughter and I know his greatest wish would be for us to take total care of his daughter until she reaches adulthood and we are going to make sure of that,” his mother promised.
Mario also leaves to mourn his three brothers – Dale, Denny, and Theo Peters along with his sister, Christiana Peters. (KS)