ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Collin Samuels is the first of six survivors from Sunday's deadly motor crash on Constant Spring Road, Kingston, to be released from hospital.
He was at the family home yesterday, 5 Whitfield Avenue, Whitfield Town, Kingston 13, after spending three days at the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
Six people died in the accident and another five persons are still hospitalised in serious condition. One woman is still at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) while the others a 16-year old girl, a 14-year-old boy and two three-year-olds all suffering from broken bones and admitted to the University Hospital.
Collin, a student at Half-Way-Tree Primary, was among 12 persons in a Nissan station wagon which crashed into a utility pole at the intersection of Retreat Drive and Constant Spring Road, Kingston, Sunday, while trying to overtake another vehicle.
His mother, 36-year-old Graphic printery employee Yvonne Thompson and his three-year-old sister, Stephanie Bailey, died in hospital on Monday.
Appearing calm, although obviously in discomfort with casts around his broken arm and leg, he told The Gleaner, "I just feel the car hit and one of my friends drop out and then I just knock out."
Stephanie's father, Devon Bailey, felt it was unfair that he should lose both his partner and his child. Both will be buried next Sunday.
"Bwoy it rough. Ah two of dem you know! The mother gone and de daughter gone...ah mean even if de mother gone you coulda love up de daughter because de mother gone. But, wid de two ah dem gone, mi nuh have nothing," he lamented.
However, he claimed that there were omens prior to the accident: "Dem get so much warning an fi still go at dat deh party." He said the warnings included the breaking of a glass table, the bottom of a glass falling out, dreams of impending death for one whole week and a dead hen found one morning.
Four others, in addition to Mr. Bailey's family also also died in the crash. The latest victim is 40-year-old Sharon Haughton, Ms. Thompson's next door neighbour. Also dead are driver the driver of the vehicle, Clive Murray, 40. Murray's motor vehicle had been chartered to take the family to and from a seventh birthday party for Ms. Thompson's godson, Cruize Nation, at McDonalds on Constant Spring Road.
Murray's 15-year-old daughter, Karen, a student of St. Andrew High School and Derron Stewart,16, who also lived at 5 Whitfield Avenue with Ms. Thompson and her daughter, are the other two.
According to the Police, only five people should have been in the car, as stipulated on the vehicle's certificate of registration and fitness certificate.
"Right there he (Murray) broke the law," explained Superintendent of Traffic, Herman Westgarr, who added that this was one of the "most unusual cases" he had ever heard of: "The car is only insured for the five persons it is licensed to carry, so I don't know what will happen in the case of compensation," he said.
Figures from the Traffic section at Elletson Road and Highway patrol, which covers some areas in Clarendon, St. Mary, St. Thomas, St. Catherine and the Corporate area show that from January 19 to November 30 last year, some 673 public passenger vehicles were ticketed, while 914 private carriers were detected, for having more passengers than legally stipulated.
So far this year, the figures are 141 public passenger vehicles and 191 private vehicles.
