ROAD CARNAGE

• Soldier, tourists among six fatalities
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Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer

Nineteen-year-old Adrian Smith would have been one step closer to realising his lifelong dream of becoming a soldier had he got the chance to do the medical examination required for entry into the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) come Wednesday.

That was an opportunity lost early Sunday morning when the car in which he was travelling slammed into a retaining wall in an area called Level Hill, along the Castleton main road in St Mary, after the driver failed to negotiate a corner. Smith's cousin, 22-year-old Kemba Baxter, a JDF coast guard, who was driving the car, also died in the crash.

Meanwhile, in Trelawny, four foreign nationals died in another crash which occurred along the Braco main road early yesterday morning.

Dead are 45-year-old Kathleen Rawlinson of a United Kingdom (UK) address; Talia Jones, a Canadian living in the UK; Caisie Mulla, 17, of the UK and 49-year-old Gary Branford, also from the UK.

Reports are that about midnight, a white 2010 Mitsubishi L300 minibus, driven by Branford, was travelling along the Braco main road towards Rio Bueno when it collided with a 2010 Ford Ranger.

Also injured in that accident are 25-year-old Josie Branford, Owen Mulla, 15, and Luke Evans of UK, as well as Bryan Clarke, who were admitted to the Falmouth Public Hospital.

In the St Mary crash, a third cousin, Khalid Baxter, who was travelling in the back seat of the vehicle, has been hospitalised. His condition is considered serious.

The Baxters are from Castleton and were on their way home from a party less than a mile from where they lived. It is said that Kemba did two years of service with the Coast Guard before he was killed yesterday.

"From ever since, he always say that him want to become a soldier. His cousin was a soldier and the two of them close, so I guess that was his reason for wanting to join the army," Susan Carr, Smith's mother, told The Gleaner during a visit to the home yesterday.

With a piece of cloth wrapped around her head and eyes nearly swollen, the grief was evidently too much for 41-year-old Carr, who told The Gleaner her son was loved by the entire community.

"Him never give any trouble in the community. Everybody loved him," Carr said. The mother explained that she last spoke to her son shortly after 2 a.m. yesterday when he awoke her to inform her that he was going to the party.

"Him seh 'Mummy, mi a go a one party up the road because you know seh mi soon can't go to anymore party'," she said, adding that her son was making reference to soon having to go away on army training.

That was the last time she saw him alive. "Shortly after six, mi hear a bus load a people up the road a mek noise. Then one of him friend run come call mi and seh Kemba crash up the road. Then somebody else come tell mi seh the two of them dead," she said, clutching to her youngest of four sons. Smith was the eldest.

For a community with a tranquility only disturbed by traffic going in and out of Kingston, it was evident that the death of the two cousins had taken a heavy toll on Castleton. The men were described by one community member as model youths.

"Mi can't worry too much about it, mi a try take it easy," Carolee Carr, Kemba's mother said in a hushed tone.

"He was at work all weekend. A jus' yesterday he came home, and them decide seh them a go to the party," the mother said, adding that they hardly spoke when he came home yesterday.

She said she is at a loss as to how the youths could have met their demise just metres away from their home.

"Somebody told me that them never drink anything at the party, suh mi don't know if they were speeding or what." She is now clinging to hopes that her 25-year-old son, Khalid, who is in hospital, will recover from his injuries.

Yesterday, when The Gleaner visited the Castleton Police Station, officers on duty stated that the police accident unit was yet to give a formal statement on the cause of the accident.

Correspondent Richard Morais contributed to this report