Missed death by centimetres, says Heroes Circle survivor
TWO OF the survivors of the vehicular crash in the vicinity of Heroes Circle, Kingston, last Friday night, which claimed the lives of two of their friends, say they too could have easily been killed if it weren’t for quick thinking.
“I had to jump up with one leg to avoid being hit, but by then, when me look, Shawn’d (Ferguson) was on the ground, and Tarick (Dawkins) and the bike he rode down the road. Dead to rahtid,” said Kadeem Lynch, while displaying the ‘gymnast-like skills’ he used to avoid death.
He had a badly bruised leg to show. A friend and fellow survivor Nicholas Newman also displayed the bruises he sustained in the accident.
The police reported that about 11:20 p.m. on Friday, September 28, a driver of a motor car allegedly lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a group of persons, who were standing beside the roadway along east Heroes Circle.
Six persons were taken to hospital where 17-year-old Ferguson and 29-year-old Dawkins succumbed to their injuries, while the other four were admitted. Two of them have since been discharged after receiving treatment. Lynch is one of them.
“We were there holding a little vibe because my bredren got paid, and I was waiting on my mother’s birthday, which was the Saturday to come, so we can celebrate, when all hell broke loose,” Lynch said.
BEFORE I COULD SQUINT
Lynch said the strange thing about the incident was that Ferguson went to get some money from his mother to buy food, came back to where the group of friends stood, walked off, and returned at the spot before the car ploughed into them.
“Before I could squint, is the car me see pon de sidewalk a clean up everything in its way. The man not even come to look pon we. Although we got hit, we were more concerned about our friends still, enuh, and a limp about a try get a car to take them to the hospital before the police arrived on the scene,” said Newman, another of the injured friends.
“We missed death by centimetres.”
The latest report from the Road Safety Unit of the Ministry of Transport shows that there have been 263 road fatalities so far this year, compared to 259 for the same period last year. Men dominated the statistics, with 229 killed on the nation’s roadways so far this year. It also shows that 34 women died as a result of traffic crashes during the period.
Police Area One, which includes the parishes of Westmoreland, St James, Hanover and Trelawny, leads all other divisions, with 80 fatalities from 63 fatal crashes.