TRIPLE TRAGEDY
3 relatives killed, 2 injured in frenetic dash to hospital to save mom
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2022 | 12:10 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
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WESTERN BUREAU: The agony gripping 58-year-old Delroy Thompson is causing him to ponder whether fate would have treated him differently had he been the one transporting his mother in a frantic effort to reach the hospital on Thursday night after...
WESTERN BUREAU:
The agony gripping 58-year-old Delroy Thompson is causing him to ponder whether fate would have treated him differently had he been the one transporting his mother in a frantic effort to reach the hospital on Thursday night after she suddenly fell ill.
Thompson’s mother and two brothers perished after the Nissan AD Wagon in which they were travelling crashed along the AGS Coombs Highway in Montego Bay, St James.
Dead are 75-year-old mother Hazel Thompson and her sons, 54-year-old Barrington Thompson and 56-year-old brother Cleveland Thompson
The grieving carpenter told The Gleaner on Friday that he was the one who was going to take her from their Unity Hall home to the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Mount Salem, but Barrington took on the task as his vehicle was being blocked by another.
The deceased woman’s younger son, O’Neil Thompson, and her granddaughter, 31-year-old Chance Williams, were injured in the crash and are now hospitalised in serious condition.
“It’s a very sad case. Until now mi can’t believe what really happened,” Delroy told The Gleaner. “Is like wi mother take sick and all a wi a hurry fi bring her go a hospital.”
He continued: “Because my car block up, Barrington decided fi carry her in a fi him car because it did park out a the road, and it never block in, so him lef out wid wi mother, O’Neil, Cleveland and one a mi niece.”
After his path was cleared, Delroy decided to leave out in his car to join the others at the hospital.
While travelling along the AGS Coombs Highway, he came upon the scene of the accident and soon realised that it was his brother’s car.
He helped to extract the passengers from the vehicle and transport them to the hospital, where his mother and two brothers were pronounced dead.
According to reports from the Freeport police, at approximately 11:50 p.m., on Thursday, the five relatives were travelling in a grey Nissan AD Wagon motor car, when on reaching the vicinity of the ATL Automotive dealership at the AGS Coombs section of the Bogue stretch of the North Coast Highway, Barrington lost control of the vehicle and it slammed into a median.
The impact of the crash resulted in all the occupants sustaining head and body injuries.
Up to yesterday, some 324 persons had been killed in road crashes since the start of the year.
Fatal crashes have declined by six per cent this year with 280 incidents recorded, while fatalities have dipped by three per cent.
Private motor vehicle drivers account for 21 per cent of the road users killed as at September 9, while private motor vehicle passengers account for 15 per cent of fatalities.
A further breakdown of data from the Road Safety Unit in the Ministry of Transport shows males accounting for 85 per cent of fatalities, while females number 15 per cent.
Director of the Road Safety Unit, Deidrie Hudson Sinclair, has renewed the call for road users to exercise caution, noting that men, especially, should be more careful as they number significantly more among fatalities.
“This is not comforting, as families are losing breadwinners, having severe consequences for the stability of homes, communities and the economy,” Hudson Sinclair said in a release yesterday.