Chapelton crash orphans boy

A three-vehicle crash on the Chapelton main road in Clarendon has left a little boy an orphan.

His father, Hector Mowen, a taxi operator who plies the May Pen to Chapelton route, was flung from his vehicle into a culvert on Tuesday afternoon and succumbed to his injuries moments later.

In an interview with The Gleaner, a fellow operator who didn’t want to be named said he saw the accident unfold as he was behind Mowen.

“We go down there, tie whatever we have to tie round him and take him up. He was still alive, but he died shortly after,” he told The Gleaner.

A friend of Mowen’s who gave her name as Diane was seen comforting Mowen’s mother, Lorna Ellis, as she wept uncontrollably at the scene.

Diane said that Mowen’s babymother died about two years ago and his mother was helping to raise his son.

“He had an accident recently where his car got burnt up and mi know him as a very good driver, so it was very surprising to me, ‘cause mi hear seh a bad drive him get,” Diane said.

District Officer Stanley Bailey, who was one of the first responders on the scene, said the crash happened about 3:45 p.m. and a rescue crew had to use jaws of life to remove the driver of the Clarendon College bus from the vehicle.

It is understood that a number of persons were transported to the May Pen Hospital.

The Clarendon College students were reportedly not seriously injured.

Between January 1 and May 3, there were 151 crash fatalities in Jamaica, nine more than for the corresponding period in 2020.