Adams: Give me a tourist drive

The last thing Jacqueline Adams remembers is taking a sip of her freshly bought Mackeson stout; the next moment, she was staring up at her mother Millicent from her bed at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.{{more}}

Sitting in the living room of her Cemetery Hill home nursing her injured neck and abdomen, Jacqueline is thanking God that she is alive, but at the same time her heart goes out to the family of Elson Hazell, who became the second road fatality for 2008.

Adams was one of the last persons to see Hazell alive; after all, they were both in the vehicle that slammed into the Digicel store on Halifax Street at about 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 19.

The mother of five recounted to Searchlight that she had met Hazell, along with his cousin-in-law Police Officer Salmon Bailey and Woman Police Officer Amal Thompson at a Karaoke hangout in Arnos Vale during the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Adams said that she was offered a ride by Bailey, whom she had known for many years.

“I was getting a ride with some people on a pick up, but everybody on that look like they was drunk out, so I go with Bailey.”

“We come to town and was just liming (around Fuzion Nightclub). Everyone was having a good time and joking around.”

Adams said that as the group was preparing to leave to take Thompson home, she and Hazell asked Bailey to drive carefully.

“I was sitting next to Bailey and Edson was lined up behind me and the lady was behind Bailey.”

“I tell him to give me a tourist drive because there was no traffic on the road, and everybody laugh.”

She said that although she and the deceased did not live too far from each other, they had never met before, but from their brief interaction, she could tell that he was an “OK” person.

“He was very cool and friendly and I really feel it for him, because he was nice and fun to be around.”

Adams said that she would have liked to attend the funeral, but she is presently unable to move around on her own.

This is not the first time that Adams has had a brush with death; last September she was involved in an accident at Buccament Bay that left her with bruises about her body.