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Harrison was traveling westbound to Belmopan when his SUV was crushed by the cargo of a flatbed truck that was coming from the opposite direction. The flatbed was full of lumber, and it seems that when it whipped around the curve, the lumber slid off, directly unto Harrison's vehicle. He was crushed and trapped inside the vehicle and succumbed to severe head and body injuries by the time emergency personnel were able to extract him. PLUS TV spoke to an eyewitness who wished to appear off camera.

Voice of: Miguel Ara, Eyewitness
"I saw when this truck was coming. I didn't see this vehicle, but when I heard bang, I thought that a tyre was burst. Someone told me that it was a vehicle that got knocked. I sew that the truck tail catch the vehicle, because if only a piece of lumber fell on it, it wouldn't have looked like that. The tail hit the vehicle and it dash the vehicle off the road like that. The second vehicle was coming from behind too had to stop on the boards. We didn't see nobody from the condition the vehicle was in. we stood there watching and the chairlady came and ask what had happened. She went and see and yelled that the guy was still breathing, but nobody couldn't do anything, because they didn't allow it. The first ambulance came and then followed by another and then the police vehicles came."

Reporter
"Do you know this area to be an area where people would try to bang this curve hard?"

Voice of: Miguel Ara, Eyewitness
"Yes, they bang it real hard. Sometime you see vehicles on the other side in the drain at the culvert head. They can't take the curve."

Reporter
"And now somebody lost their life. What was running through your mind after you learned that?"

Voice of: Miguel Ara, Eyewitness
"Well I say its carelessness and due to the curve of the road too."

And this evening we spoke to Julian Sherrard, a long time neighbour and friend of Harrison's. As we told you Harrison was instrumental in the founding of the La Ruta Maya Race. Julian served for a time on the race's board and this evening he regaled us with the struggles Harrison faced to create the competition that memorializes the once vital role the Belize River played as a means of transportation.

Voice of: Julian Sherrard, Friend and neighbor
"As far as I know he got in touch with Luis Garcia and they together put the idea of doing some sort of adventure activity to promote purified water and they were looking to do maybe some kind of a horse back ride with a canoe. Some sort of an adventure race and I think that is now merge into what we called La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge. If I recall correctly they hired a gentleman from San Ignacio who had a canoe company and they hired him to paddle all the way from San Ignacio to Belize City, because in those days nobody did that anymore. At one point in time the river was the highway for the old steamboats. But since the highway was put in coming to Cayo, more and more trucks started making the run and as the highway got better, the river stop being such an important highway and the highway took over. So they hired this gentleman from Cayo and he paddled down to Belize City and found that it was passable and you wouldnt get lost or eaten by something and so they got a crew together and actually went down the river and help to clean out some of the log jams that occur with every year's flood. He is definitely a true Belizean and always wanting the best for our country and my heart certainly goes out to all of his family. I've know them my whole life, they are good people, good Belizeans and Richard will certainly be missed by all of us. He had a lot to offer the country and he definitely tried his best. It would have been interesting to see him achieve more in his lifetime for his family and for his country. I am very sorry that be had passed so young."

More recently Harrison had thrown himself into the Clean Water Alliance Project. And much in line with his legacy of immortalizing the rivers, he hoped to become an advocate for the pooling of the human and material resources necessary to end pollution of our waters, and to rehabilitate our waters. Richard Harrison, dead at 55.