Child dies in highway accident

While firefighters were engaged at a blaze on the foreshore on Saturday morning, police were called to the scene of an accident on the Western Highway, just outside the city. The tragedy claimed the life of a child.

The three Dougal brothers were riding to Belizean Beach for a Saturday swim when ten-year-old Resse Dougal was hit and killed between miles three and four on the Western Highway.

Jacqueline Woods

“This is where the body of ten year old Resse Dougal landed after he was knocked down off his bicycle. According to his thirteen-year-old brother, Kenroy Dougal, Resse was constantly crossing the highway with his bicycle when a pickup truck, travelling at high speed hit him from behind.”

Kenroy Dougal, Brother

“He was zig zagging. We tell him to stop; he don’t want to. Then when he was going to the other side, I tell him to stop. If you go over that side you stay on that side, if you come over this side you stay on this side. He stopped and he looked at the vehicle, the vehicle brakes and just hit him. So while he was moving across the highway that’s when the vehicle knocked him.”

Q: “Did the driver try to stop?”

Kenroy Dougal

“He tried but he couldn’t.”

Q: “I understand after the vehicle knocked him, your brother was thrown into the air?”

Kenroy Dougal

“He hit on the windshield. He went into the air three feet, about that, and he dropped on the floor flat.”

Resse was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Twenty-eight year old Lloyd King, a mechanic has been charged with driving without due care and attention, driving without a valid drivers license, causing death by careless conduct and manslaughter by negligence. King was travelling towards Hattieville at the time of the accident. Area residents tell News Five they often see young people dodging cars and other vehicles on this stretch of highway.