Four now dead after Tuesday's crash in St Ann

Dr Roosevelt Crooks of Lifeline Medical Response was in the process of transporting injured persons from an accident in Discovery Bay to the St Ann's Bay Regional Hospital on Tuesday night when he came upon another crash at Llandovery, which claimed the lives of four persons.

Michael Glascow 21, of Village Green, St Ann's Bay; 22-year-old Eric Forbes of Steerfield, St Ann; 24-year-old Jahnor Powell of Charles Town, St Mary; and Teisha Douglas, whose address has not been ascertained, died in the Llandovery accident.

Glascow, the driver of the ill-fated Honda Civic, which crashed into a truck along the Llandovery main road, succumbed to his injuries yesterday. Two other persons remain in hospital.

"We were able to move three of the injured from the scene. The fourth one, I couldn't take because he was a stretcher patient, but I summoned one of my other units," Crooks told The Gleaner. "One was obviously dead. We tried to see how best we could stabilise the rest," he said.

"The sad thing about it, the Llandovery accident claimed three lives (at the time of the interview) - all from the same hotel, Grand BahÌa PrÌncipe. The irony of it is that the first accident had employees from another hotel, and they are pretty banged up right now."

Crooks appealed to motorists to exercise caution: "We need to stop the speeding. We need to stop the recklessness."

OUT OF CONTROL

Six persons were on their way from work at the Grand BahÌa PrÌncipe Hotel in the Honda Civic motor car being driven by Glascow when upon reaching the bridge at the junction to Mines district, the vehicle reportedly got out of control and crashed into a truck travelling in the opposite direction. It then slammed into a car that was waiting to enter the main thoroughfare.

There have been no reports of injuries to the truck driver or the driver of the second car.

Police confirmed yesterday that investigations so far suggest that the driver of the Honda Civic motor car was at fault and that no charges were pending for the truck driver.

As news of the accident spread on Tuesday night, dozens of employees from the hotel converged on the crash scene and later at the St Ann's Bay Regional Hospital, under a cloud of gloom, according to the hotel's director of human resources, Fabian Brown.

"It is unexplainable for an evening like this to have been a reality for all of us at the hotel," Brown told The Gleaner. "So there is gloom and sadness, and for me to say that is an understatement."

He said staff members turned out in their numbers to show support.

"The intention is that we need to bond together, we need to pray, we need to pull together, we need to hope. Unfortunately, we would have lost some of our team members this evening and it is painful. It is indeed very painful, and it is something that we are very saddened about."

The crash occurred a few hundred metres from the site of a crash in May that left five people dead.

It was also the second crash along the thoroughfare between St Ann's Bay and Discovery Bay that evening.