
This petrol tanker crashed yesterday into an abandoned building at 10 Windward Road, East Kingston, trapping mechanic Barrington Bryan under a Daihatsu car for 45 minutes. - Ian AllenBy Petulia Clarke,
Freelance Writer
AUTO REPAIRMAN Barrington "Bonner" Bryan must have wished a hundred times yesterday that he had chosen a different time to go to Windward Road, East Kingston, to borrow a funnel.
For more than 45 minutes, he was pinned to a wall beneath a smashed Daihatsu Applause car and a petrol tanker, as firemen worked feverishly to cut him loose from crumpled metal.
Bryan and the Daihatsu had been swept inside an abandoned building on Windward Road, by the out-of-control tanker after the driver swerved to avoid smashing into another vehicle. He lost control and the tanker crashed into the building.
Rescuers banged on the building trying to break down the walls while exhaust fumes from the smoking trailer filled Bryan's lungs, but he still clung to life. He probably gave up hope when fire broke out on the trailer-head, water from the firemen's hose pounded his bruised body, and persons on the outside feared the worst.
"Him can't make it, him must dead with all the smoke," a woman muttered as she stared wide-eyed at the firemen, "Poor Bonner must dead."
Clinton Bygrave went to his rescue. Charging into the smoke, the jobless driver who ironically had just applied for a job with the Fire Brigade, took the keys to the tanker and, gasping from the effect of smoke in his lungs, put it in reverse, freeing Barrington Bryan. Bruised, suffering from smoke inhalation and his ankle smashed, he was happy for the miracle that kept him alive.
"I sell fish right at the fire hydrant," Amos Bell said, pointing to a fire hydrant adjacent to the building at 10 Windward Road. "Mi a scale the fish an chat and when mi look up the road mi see the tanker a come fast fast. It spin another car, lick a drinks truck, and when mi see it coming down, mi get up and run."
He said he looked behind him for Barrington who had been leaning on the parked car, but didn't see him as the tanker had swept both the mechanic and the parked car inside the abandoned building."
Clifton Lewis of St Elizabeth who was the driver of the tanker, had both his hands broken while Bryan suffered injuries to the ankles and legs. Both men were taken to the Kingston Public Hospital.
"I just buy the car last Thursday", Raymond O'Reagan, the owner of the Daihatsu Applause car, said. "This morning I take it out of the car mart, and park it there." He said that Bryan, who owned the mechanic shop nearby, came to him borrowing a funnel which he went to his yard to get. He moved off leaving Bryan leaning on the car speaking to other vendors, who sold on the piazza.