Double death rocks red-cap porters

WESTERN BUREAU:

The mood at the Sangster International Airport on Wednesday morning was sombre as red-cap porters mourned the passing of two of their colleagues who died within 24 hours of each other.

Thirty-nine-year-old Dwayne Peart, who was forced into retirement owing to a debilitating illness less than a year ago, died on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, his former colleague, 60-year-old Lewin ‘Bigga’ Haughton, collapsed at the airport.

Haughton was later pronounced dead at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

“It’s not good. It’s not good at all,” were the few words Opal Atkins, administrative assistant at the Montego Bay Red Cap Porter Association, could muster when she spoke with The Gleaner on Wednesday.

Both men, she said, were assets to the organisation, with Haughton having spent the last 20 years on the job. He worked on Tuesday and was back on the job on Wednesday when eyewitnesses say he complained of not feeling well.

“It seemed as if he was having a seizure,” Atkins said she was told.

The night before, Peart, who had been ailing and was unable to walk, a requirement for the job as a porter, died at hospital.

When the news of the double death reached the ears of the porters on duty at the airport, they all started to cry, said Atkin.

Haughton, who was from Moy Hall district, was well loved.

“Bigga was very popular and friendly. Everybody was his cousin,” declared Atkins.