SHELDON WILLIAMS and Rasbert Turner

STAR Writer

An elderly man and a 14-year-old student of Ascot High School are now dead, and at least two other persons injured, after a car being driven by the elderly man climbed on a sidewalk and hit pedestrians before crashing into a nearby fence.

The accident occurred shortly before 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon on Dawkins Drive in proximity to the Portmore Mall in St Catherine.

The driver of the vehicle, who reportedly died in the crash, has been identified as Hepburn Reid of a Bridgeport address in Portmore.

At the same time, the 14-year-old girl who died later at hospital, has been identified as Renee Barnett from West Cumberland, also in Portmore.

Another 14-year-old girl, who was walking alongside Barnett at the time of the accident, has been hospitalised.

lost control

Police reports indicate that Reid was driving the vehicle when he exited the Portmore Toll road and entered Dawkins Drive, where he lost control of the vehicle which then mounted the pavement and hit the two girls.

A passenger who was also travelling in the vehicle at the time suffered injury.

The victims were taken to the Spanish Town Hospital, where Barnett later died while undergoing treatment.

The other victims were admitted in serious but stable condition.

The sight of blood, transmission oil, shattered glass, vomit, scattered pairs of shoes and a damaged parameter fence was the evidence that remained when THE STAR arrived on the scene moments later.

Several alleged eyewitnesses, employed to the nearby Victoria Mutual Building Society, explained to THE STAR what happened at the time of the accident.

blood everywhere

"I heard a loud bang, and when I came outside I saw a girl pinned to the fence ... she was on top of the car top. Apparently what had happened, two girls were walking on the sidewalk, the car came off the toll road and hit them down.The driver was pinned under the steering wheel ... there was another person, the passenger, he came out of the car ... The police told her that his two feet were crushed, there was blood everywhere," one of the eyewitnesses remarked.

Another eyewitness explained that "is a loud bang we hear and me tink a did something drop … we froze!!!," she recounted.

"A must sick him get sick, as when I left him in Harbour View today, he said that him feel sick bad. A believe that him get block out and crash, " Byron Wallace, an employee of Reid, said.

A number of persons on the scene said it was like a freak accident, as the vehicle ran off the toll road into the children.

Interestingly, it was popular opinion among those persons with whom THE STAR spoke that the area where the accident took place is a danger zone and "more people a go dead" if changes are not made by the authorities to that stretch of road.

As news of the road tragedy spread, traffic proceeded slowly as motorists tried to get a glimpse of the evidence that was left behind, even as they followed the instructions of two police officers who were on the scene directing vehicular traffic.