Two road workers were taken to hospital after being struck by a car on Tuesday afternoon in a collision that has created yet another gridlock on Cayman’s main thoroughfares.
Among the first on the scene was Eric Bush, chairman of the National Road Safety Committee, who bemoaned the fact that yet again the community is dealing with people being hurt on Cayman’s roads as a result of poor driving choices.
A police statement issued at 3:55pm, stated that the collision occurred on the eastbound lanes, which were closed while emergency services responded to the incident. Police announced that the lanes were reopened shortly before 7pm.
The condition of the victims, who work for Island Paving and were building roadside concrete culverts, is unknown at this time, but a company official told the Compass they had suffered broken limbs and internal injuries.
Bush told the Compass he had been driving along the highway when suddenly he saw a “big puff of smoke” ahead of him.
“As I drove closer, I saw what turned out to be Island Paving workers both [in] high visibility shirts, one laying in the middle of the road on my lane and the other in the median, and then a crashed car,” Bush said.
The former police officer, now chief officer at the Planning Ministry, pulled to the side to assist.
Bush said he was among the first to call 911, and as he assessed the scene, to his dismay, he noted that it appeared that the crashed vehicle had been travelling on the other side of the road.
“It’s obvious that it was [travelling at] a high rate of speed, hit the two workers, and then finally landed on the opposite side of the road,” he said.
The crash, which forced the closure of the eastbound lanes of the highway, created a traffic nightmare for motorists trying to make their commute home.
Bush said the situation on Cayman’s roads cannot continue in this way.
This crash and another on Saturday that caused major tailbacks followed two fatal collisions last week, in which Cayman Brac resident Dulce Rodriquez and Jamaican national Teron Anthony Johnson were killed.
“We have two people and their families that their lives have changed now forever and then we have thousands of people who are now inconvenienced trying to get home from work where their normal commute is probably tripled, if not quintupled because of one person” Bush said.
He pleaded with the community to slow down when driving.
“We have other things with drunk driving… with people using telephones, defective vehicles need licensing, etc,” adding that it was evident that the cause of major accidents on local roads is excessive speed.
Bush commended the emergency services for their quick response.
A National Road Safety Committee statement, issued in the aftermath of Tuesday’s collision, said that statistics from Public Safety Communication 911 indicates that more than 600 motor vehicle accidents have been recorded since the beginning of the year.
“Speeding, drunk driving and use of phone while driving are said to be key factors causing accidents across the Islands,” the committee statement added.
Check back for updates to this developing story.
Related Videos
