After hearing evidence about a road accident involving a single car, a Coroner’s Jury returned the verdict of death by misadventure.
Queen’s Coroner Margaret Ramsay-Hale conducted the inquest into the death of Lamar Wayne Ryan, 20, who was killed in the early hours of Saturday, 21 June 2003, along Shamrock Road.
According to the written statement of one witness, which the coroner read aloud, Lamar was at a dance that Friday night at a location where alcohol was served. Afterwards, they went to get something to eat and Lamar drove the witness home, east of Bodden Town. His driving was good: ‘he was not driving from side to side.’
The next witness said he was out on his land some time after 4am. He heard a car coming from about two miles up the road from the Bodden Town direction heading in the George Town direction. It had a loud exhaust.
He was about 75 feet from the road and watched the car cross. He estimated its speed at between 80 and 100 miles per hour. In a matter of seconds, he heard the impact. When he went to the scene, a person was lying in the road. The car and its engine were in different places.
A sketch plan drawn by a police officer showed a slight curve in the road before the accident. The car’s first point of impact was with a concrete fence wall, which was damaged for a length of 40 feet. Further west, the car lost its engine.
A second impact point was shown involving a sign further down on the other side of the road.
The car came to rest at the junction with Agricola Drive. Lamar’s body was found between the car and the second point of impact.
Mr. Vincent Walters, accident reconstructionist, explained the process by which he estimated the vehicle’s speed.
He first described the speed before the car hit the wall. Prior to that collision, the car had just negotiated a slight right hand bend. The critical curve speed – the maximum at which the bend could have been negotiated safely – was 99.84 miles per hour.
There were no visible marks on the road before that impact. After that impact, one of the wheels left a ‘yaw mark’ on the road surface. Based on the length of the yaw mark and the drag factor of the road’s surface, Mr. Walters applied a standard formula.
He determined that, after colliding with the wall, the car was still travelling at 56 mph.
Mr. Walters’ written report concluded that Lamar had negotiated the bend at a speed in excess of 99.84 mph, thus causing the car to travel on more of a straight path, rather than following the course directed by the driver.
In an attempt to being the car back on course, the driver ‘over steered’ to the right and lost control. The right front end collided with concrete wall.
Mr. Walters noted that the car was a right-hand drive. He also observed that there were no marks on the body to substantiate the wearing of a seat belt.
He said the sudden impact of the car with the wall caused the driver to be thrown over to the left door, breaking the glass and distorting the door. The driver was thrown out of the window, went airborne and collided with the metal sign post, completely severing his left arm.
The force of the impact caused the car to rotate clockwise before coming to rest.
After Mr. Walters’ evidence, the coroner read from a post mortem report, which the jurors had copies of. It showed the physical cause of death to be multiple injuries, including skull fractures.
The coroner explained further that, in such examinations, it is usual for blood to be taken for routine screening. A laboratory report showed a blood/alcohol reading of .182. The legal limit is .100. The sample also tested positive for ganja.
The jury’s verdict was unanimous.
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