SHOCKED INTO SILENCE
MOM OF ACCIDENT VICTIM HAS NOT SPOKEN SINCE TRAGEDY
AT JUST 17 years old, the world was just about to open up in all its majesty for Shawn’d Ferguson. He had big dreams of being a success but was taking his time deciding what career path to take. Then tragedy struck.
Ferguson was among a group of friends, all of a similar age, discussing life, when an out-of-control car ploughed into them while they stood on the sidewalk in the vicinity of Heroes Circle near Regent Street in Kingston last Friday night.
Ferguson and Tarick Dawkins, who happened to be at that exact location at the time, were killed, while four others suffered injuries and were hospitalised.
Three days after the accident, Ferguson’s grieving mother, Sidonie Allen, is still shocked into silence. Family members said she has not uttered a word since then.
It is taking an unimaginable toll on the family, one neighbour said.
His younger brother, Javin Anderson, said he feels like he’s going crazy, and his father, James Anderson,
has not yet accepted that his son has passed on.
Javin was beside himself, his eyes holding a bewildered look as he spoke to The Gleaner.
“He was my best brother,” he said, “I just feel like me a guh mad, and right yah now, I don’t want anybody ask me ‘bout no funeral, enuh, because this can’t be real.”
BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW
The boys’ father, James, said that his son’s death is still a bitter pill to swallow and a reality that is yet to sink in.
“All now me nuh believe say him dead; me nah lie. I can’t believe it. I went down to the morgue to identify him, and I still can’t get around to believing that him dead,” he said.
Anderson said that the last conversation he had with Ferguson was about his future, a mere half-hour before the unexpected claimed his life.
“The last thing me actually say to him, enuh, was that me have two likkle rides (cars), plus me do furniture. Why not take one a dem and run some taxi and try mek life,” Anderson recounted.
“Or come do some furniture work, because a dat me deal with. Him a say, ‘Daddy, you too miserable, enuh. But a furniture me like, so I’m willing to try’.”
He added, “That was the last thing I said to him before this madness. I got a call that car hit him down and he’s dead. The only way I will believe is when him going into the grave, because me nuh feel it say him dead right now either.”
“It’s been three days now and not a word from her. When I went to see her, she only looking through me, like glass, she not saying anything. It has devastated her, and me nuh know when she will talk again,” stated Anderson, who is worried about Allen, who is not speaking to anyone.
Ferguson is a former Calabar High School student who was still searching for his identity and purpose in the world.
“He was trying to figure out his next step. He was a bright youth. And just like that, he’s dead,” said Anderson.
The police Corporate Communications Unit reported that yesterday, the suspect, accompanied by his lawyer, turned himself into the police.