The Honda Fit in which Dr. Amber Martinez died following a crash in East End in 2022 was one of the cars on local roads that was subject to a recall of defective airbags, a coroner’s court jury has heard.
Martinez, 29, who worked at the Health Services Authority, died in the fiery single-car wreck on the Queens Highway shortly after 6am on 21 Oct. 2022.
The car had been lent to Martinez by her godfather, Robert Campbell, who told the court while giving evidence that he was due to have the car inspected on the day she died.
Campbell said when he bought the second-hand car from the previous owner, it had a vehicle licence and inspection from the Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing. He said he had been unaware that it was subject to a recall by airbag manufacturer Takata.
The court heard that, since the accident, the Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing has implemented a policy that requires cars that contain the affected airbags to obtain a letter from dealerships stating that the airbag has been replaced.
No knowledge of airbag recall
Campbell, who owns a car repair and sales business, said, at the time he purchased the car and when lent it to his god-daughter, he had no knowledge that the Honda Fit vehicle had a faulty airbag.
He said, after the accident, he subsequently found a lot of information regarding the defective Takata airbags and the recall.
Asked by lawyer Alex Davies, of HSM, if he had been made aware of any information from the Cayman Islands government or any other party about the recall prior to the accident, Campbell replied, “No.”
He said he was now aware that any vehicles subject to the recall that had not had the defective airbags replaced would fail DVDL inspection.
The jury also heard from RCIPS Police Constable Nkrumah Morgan, who investigated the fatal accident, that he’d been aware of the recall because several years earlier, the airbag in his own private vehicle was subject to the recall. He’d had it replaced at Honda dealership Car City, which was running a local campaign to replace the defective airbags, he told jurors.
His investigations showed that the vehicle Martinez had been driving had been licensed several times over the years, and that the airbag had not been replaced, even though the car was subject to the recall.
The court was shown a letter written by the DVDL’s supervisor of vehicle inspections, Roy Bush, in early 2023, stating that the licensing department inspectors make visual inspections, but do not use any tools to determine if there is defect in a vehicle.
Morgan told the court that Bush had mentioned a 2016 campaign by Car City for replacing defective airbags in Honda vehicles, but said “it was not enforced”.
Coroner Angelyn Hernandez asked Morgan, “Let’s get this straight. From 2016, there were discussions between Car City and government, DVDL, that they would rectify recalls on Hondas, but this was not enforced? So how would persons become aware of these recalls, because the DVDL was still passing vehicles which had recalls up to 2022? So how was the public supposed to know?”
Morgan responded that he did not know the answer to that question, but said he’d personally become aware of the recall through local radio announcements several years ago.
Engulfed in flames
The court heard that within about five minutes of the accident being reported, Martinez’s car, which had run off the road into a ditch not far from Sunny Field Road along the Queen’s Highway, had been engulfed in flames.
A neighbour and friend of the Martinez family reported the accident to 911 shortly after 6am.
It had just stopped raining that morning, and was still dark, he told the court.
He said that soon after he pulled out from the house to head to work in George Town, he had “caught a glimpse of headlights in the bush” and saw the car, facing downwards in a ditch, not far from his and the Martinez home.
Initially, he said, he thought someone had stolen a car, crashed it and left. But then he realised the car lights were still bright “so it must have just happened, so I stopped the car”.
After phoning a friend to say what he had seen, he climbed down the incline by the side of the road, shouted “hello, hello”, and got no answer. He opened the rear door of the car to check if there was anyone inside the vehicle.
He told the jurors he could see that the airbag was deployed and there was a “haze” and acrid smell inside the car, but he did not see anyone in the car, and assumed the driver had gotten out.
He had left his phone in his own car, so did not have a light with him when he checked the car, he said.
He returned to the road and called 911, telling them he had not seen anyone in the vehicle. As he was talking to the operator, he said, he walked around the vehicle and realised the car was beginning to catch fire.
“All of sudden, the car became pretty much engulfed,” he said.
He said he only became aware that there had been someone in the car when he saw the reactions of firefighters after they arrived at the scene.
The court also heard evidence from two Department of Environmental Health staff members, who had stopped at the scene as they were doing their garbage collection round.
The garbage truck driver said he had believed the man who was at the scene when he arrived – that there was no one in the vehicle – so did not check for himself, something he says he regrets deeply.
When the car began to burn, he had taken a fire extinguisher from his truck but, thinking the vehicle was empty, decided not to put themselves in danger “if there’s no one in there, it’s just property”.
The driver and the other DEH worker returned to their round as the fire was burning, and heard later that a young woman had died in the crash, they said.
The three-day inquest into Martinez’s death is scheduled to continue at the Coroner’s Court on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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