‘It was frightening’

WESTERN BUREAU:

A teacher who was travelling behind the ill-fated Toyota Hiace minibus that plunged 300 feet into a ravine along the treacherous Long Hill main road in St James on Thursday wants the motorway condemned.

The accident, which occurred about 3:30 p.m., left one man dead and six others, including the driver and students from schools in Cambridge and Anchovy, hospitalised.

“I was driving behind the bus, which was not going fast because it had rained earlier. It seemed as if it picked up a skid because all I saw was it careening into what was left of a wall and yellow taping from a previous accident over into the gully,” said Rene Anderson, who was still in a state of shock when she spoke with The Gleaner.

Anderson said she tried to stop her car from going in the direction the bus went, but her brakes failed. Quick thinking on her part saw her engaging the handbrake, which caused her car to spin around.

“It was frightening. The wall that was hit down by a truck over a month ago has not been fixed. I don’t know if I can drive to work tomorrow (Friday) because going up Long Hill is not bad, it is coming down. There is oil on the road from the many trucks that use the thoroughfare,” she lamented.

Anderson said she got a hold of herself and decided to call the police and the fire brigade as several onlookers stood crying and transfixed by the mishap.

As they stood there, Anderson said that screams could be heard coming from the depths of the ravine below.

Linval Walters was one of two men brave enough to tackle the hilly terrain and descend to help rescue the occupants of the vehicle.

He said that when he reached where the bus had landed, at least one person seemed dead.

“I saw a number of schoolers in the bus. I started taking them out and sending them through the bush,” said Walters, a taxi driver who has been driving along the Long Hill route for 26 years.

He said the area where the vehicle landed was very rocky and was the same site at which a truck also plunged over a month ago and a crane had to be used to lift it.

“It needs a big wall, and the road needs to be fixed. It needs to be widened. Whenever it rains, there is a problem,” said Walters.

He is appealing to the authorities to do something about Long Hill, saying that too many lives have been lost on the stretch of road.

Raymond DeSouza, acting senior superintendent of the St James Division of the Jamaica Fire Brigade, said they responded promptly to the call, dispatching three units and two ambulances, noting that they were originally told that a Toyota Coaster had plunged into the ravine.

He said the emergency team extricated four students and three adults from the wreckage. They were all sent to the Cornwall Regional Hospital for treatment.

“We did a 360 of the area twice, based on the distance from the road and in the event someone may have fallen from the vehicle, but we found no one else in the area,” he told The Gleaner.

The divisional commander said although it was a difficult rescue mission, his team of firefighters was well trained and up to the task.

Up to press time last night, the police had not yet released the identity of the deceased.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com