Two injured in collision

By Stacey N. Russell 

The rush hour school run this morning almost turned deadly for a mother and her daughter just before 8 a.m. when their car slammed into the concrete wall at the four-cross junction where Green Hill, Lodge Hill and Friendship Terrace intersect, just outside PriceSmart in St Michael.

The loud bang of vehicle parts splintering reverberated throughout the district after the collision between a Shorey Village, St Andrew bound Transport Board bus and the car at the junction, which is notorious for accidents. The female car driver received a severe bang to the head, her  daughter was left terribly shaken, and the car front badly damaged. 

“I feel hurt because my child is in the car, my wife is in the car… I feel shaken,” said Simon Webster, who arrived quickly on the scene.

He told CBC News his wife Roma was taking their ten-year-old daughter to school at Bay Primary.

“We’re waiting for the ambulance. They’re in the bus laying down. I don’t know what happened. She now leave home. I drive and come up here with my other car. She was taking the little girl to school and then she had to go to the doctor. She didn’t feel too well and said she would go to the doctor this morning,” said the Green Hill resident as he waited outside the bus for the ambulance and police to arrive.

A polyclinic nurse who is usually stationed at the Eunice Gibson Polyclinic, Warrens, a stone’s throw away from the scene, was travelling on the bus and was first off to help Roma and her daughter. She was ably assisted by other caring passengers. 

“I’m going to St Andrew, that’s why I was on this bus because we have an outpatient clinic on Mondays and Wednesdays at St Andrew, so I’m the nurse up there on those days,” she explained.

“I didn’t see exactly everything . . . I heard the impact and when I look I saw the car being pushed to the side, so when the bus door opened I jumped out to make sure that the person was okay,” the nurse added, while busying herself attending to the couple. 

“Tempers flared…emotions and stuff like that, but I told them at least no life was lost and no major injury. She has a headache, she hit her head…potential head injury, but right now she doesn’t have any blurred vision, no nausea or anything like that,” the nurse said.

Another passenger complained of neck pains and said she was abandoning her trip to work in St Andrew where she worked clearing up sargassum seaweed “to get checked out” at the Eunice Gibson Polyclinic because “it makes no sense I go to work and collapse”. 

A part of the front of the bus was bent out of shape including the stairs to enter. The bus driver declined to comment but indicated he drove the Bridgetown to Shorey Village route for the Transport Board for the last 16 years.

A replacement bus arrived within 90 minutes to take the remaining passengers to St Andrew.

As the road is heavily trafficked, the collision led to a bottleneck which brought out the worst in many drivers on a rainy morning, with the most unruly impatiently honking horns and shouting expletives as they sought to push through the backed-up  traffic caused by the accident.

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