N. Highway accident kills one, injures two others

One man is dead and two others are in critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital tonight following a traffic accident on the Northern Highway. News Five’s Jacqueline Godwin reports.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Seventy-nine year old Oswald Young, affectionately called “Daddy”, was on his way home when the vehicle he was travelling in as a passenger collided into a pickup truck heading in the opposite direction at mile eight on the Northern Highway. Young, who was in the front passenger seat, suffered severe head injuries and died on the spot.

Delita Gordon, Oswald Young’s Daughter
“He has a large cut in his forehead, a large cut. His flesh is split all open.”

Carlos Guillen who was working in the area says the truck and the car were travelling at a high speed, but as the Plymouth came around the bend in the road, it appears as if the driver–in an attempt to avoid a large pot hole on the right hand side of the highway–swerved into the left lane but lost control.

Carlos Guillen, Eyewitness
“I saw both vehicles speeding, but the hole that is there made one of them move more to the side which caused them to collide. That is what I saw. The grey vehicle lost control and collided into the pickup.”

Travelling behind the Mazda pickup was Denise Grinage. Grinage says she had just pulled over to the side of the highway to let in a friend when the truck passed her vehicle.

Denise Grinage, Witness
“When I look, I see him swerve more off a fi he side, so when I look again, da like, can’t be real. And then I only hear the impact, so I just see the Ranger … I stop, I seh oh my God!”

Trapped inside the car was the driver, thirty-one year old David Vasquez and his passenger and father-in-law, Oswald Young. The pickup’s driver, thirty-two year old Gaylon Gillett, although suffering a bad leg injury, was able to get out of his vehicle and assist the police in their investigation. He would later be transferred by ambulance to the hospital.

Denise Grinage
“And when I pass and I see di people them in deh, I ask the young man-he di bawl help mi, help mi, so I ask the man, ‘Who the young man? Who di man beside you? He said his father-in-law.”

Vasquez, who was in a lot of pain, was eventually freed from the twisted metal by the National Fire and Rescue Service. But it would take the crew sometime before they could get to Young’s body that was pinned under the car’s dashboard. Deputy Fire Chief Ted Smith would also suffer some injuries of his own.

Ted Smith, Deputy Fire Chief
“During our attempt to push the dashboard from off his legs, the casualty’s legs, they were using one of the hydraulic tools named the Ram. The seal for the Ram burst under the pressure and the fuel sprayed up under my visor. I had on my helmet, if you noticed with my visor down, it went under the visor and sprayed into my face and get into both my eyes, but mostly into this one.”

The accident caused traffic to be backed up for miles as the police kept everyone at bay until the vehicles were removed and the area cleared of all the debris. Today, Delita Gordon says her father will surely be missed, especially by her mother who is an invalid and mostly relied on Young to get around.

Delita Gordon
“He is the one that help her, because we have to deh out working. And she is confined to a chair, she can’t move around. She is just from her bed to her chair. So most of the time, and even sometimes we keep telling him, daddy, ma di strain you because he mi get a bad stroke and sometimes when he go fi lift ah, he di tremble.”

Jacqueline Godwin for News Five.

According to police they have been unable to speak with the car’s driver David Vasquez, because he remains in a critical condition at the K.H.M.H.