"Mi feel bad inna myself. Sometime mi wish me never born," said one of the wards who escaped May's deadly fire at the Armadale Juvenile Corrections Centre, as she reminisced on having to use buckets as toilets.

Yesterday, the first ward to testify at the commission of enquiry into the fire at the St Ann institution said she did not feel comfortable using the buckets, which gave off an offensive odour, and sometimes girls opted to use newspapers instead of the one or two buckets that were provided at nights.

She said the buckets were removed from the dorm in the morning under the instructions of staff members or another ward who was in the dorm. However, while the ward was clear in her explanations, Shirley Johnson, deputy superintendent of corrections, insisted that she was never aware of the girls not being allowed to use the bathrooms.

No reports

Johnson, who stated that one of her main duties was monitoring the compliance of the institution to international treaties, said the girls not being allowed to access bathrooms would be a breach of human rights.

Meanwhile, the ward said she entered the facility on March 17 and was placed on lockdown for two weeks, but was never told why.

The ward told the commission that one lockdown lasted from April 21 until the May 22 fire. However, Johnson maintained that the method should never extend beyond 24 hours, as it would be a breach.

'Box it off'

The issue of the object which was hurled into the dorm came up again yesterday. The ward said she saw the policeman leave and returned to the facility after being told "something nasty" by one of the wards. She said she was standing inside on a bed when the object hit her in the chest and she "box it off" and saw smoke and sparks flew from it on to another ward's bed.

The ward told the commission that the first sensation she felt was the burning in her eyes and that the girls were screaming.

"Dem a scream an a say 'mi eye a burn mi, mi eye a burn mi, mi waan air'," she recalled. She said the room was foggy, and she felt like vomiting but only froth came up, as everyone ran towards the back window, and the policeman spoke.

"Di policeman shout out an say, 'dem bad, a dat dem fi get'," she said, contradicting Constable Lawrence Burrell's testimony that he did not say anything to the girls.

The enquiry resumes today with two other wards scheduled to testify.

kimesha.walters@gleanerjm.com