Airbag, not bullet, killed veteran Gleaner journalist

The country’s top police investigator says the finding of an autopsy that late Gleaner sports journalist Job Nelson was killed by a metal object expelled from the airbag of his car, and not by a bullet, was not surprising.

It was initially reported that Nelson was shot and killed at a traffic light along Spanish Town Road, near St Andrew Technical High School, in South St Andrew, on May 21, hours after leaving work.

However, the postmortem found that Nelson was mortally wounded by a metal object which was discharged with “immense force” from the airbag in his car after it crashed along Spanish Town Road.

The autopsy was conducted at the House of Tranquillity Funeral Home yesterday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey, who heads the Criminal Investigations Branch, said the crime scene was “thoroughly processed” and no spent casings or bullet fragments were found in the area or inside the car.

And there was nothing to indicate that a bullet was fired into the vehicle, Bailey said during an interview with The Gleaner yesterday.

“So the findings of the autopsy would not be surprising to us,” he said.

“When he was initially taken to the hospital, the doctor thought he had gotten a gunshot,” Bailey said, pointing to a possible reason for the initial report about how Nelson died.

AUTOPSY FINDINGS

According to the autopsy, the metal object discharged from the airbag of the 2007 Honda Fit Aria pierced the body of the 53-year-old veteran journalist, causing damage to his lungs and resulted in internal bleeding.

“The cause of death was given as a penetrating wound to the chest caused by the metal object from the airbag,” said a police source, who did not want to be named because they were not authorised to discuss the case publicly.

The metal object was removed during the postmortem.

Days after Nelson’s death, authorities in the United States (US) announced a recall of 34 brands of motor vehicles made by 19 different automakers to replace frontal airbags on the driver or passenger sides or both.

The airbags were made by Takata, a major auto parts supplier globally.

A total of 67 million airbags were recalled, according to a May 29 publication by Consumer Report, an American non-profit organisation dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy.

LARGEST RECALL

The US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), which ordered the measure in May, described it as the “largest and most complex safety recall in US history”.

The NHTSA reported that, up to April this year, 88 per cent of the airbags had been repaired or replaced, “still leaving many millions of at-risk airbags on the road,” the Consumer Report publication stated.

“NHTSA has determined the root cause of the problem: airbags that use nitrate-based propellant without a chemical drying agent… environmental moisture, high temperatures and age are associated with the defect that can improperly inflate the airbags and even send shrapnel into the occupant,” the publication said.

The US recorded 27 deaths and more than 400 injuries related to this defect, the report stated, citing data from the NHTSA.

A check of the chassis number on Nelson’s vehicle revealed that it was among those subject to a May 2015 recall to repair the passenger seat airbag inflator. It could not be immediately confirmed, however, whether the problem with the airbag was identical to the issues identified by Consumer Report last month.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com