Teenager helpless as truck crushes brother

One of the saddest things about having a loved one perish right before your eyes, is knowing that you could not do anything to help save them. That’s exactly how Alpheus Stevenson feels right now.{{more}}

As Stevenson sat in the passenger seat of a truck T-8414 his brother Annijas “Webbie” Jobe was driving, he watched in horror as Jobe was violently tossed from the truck, which then overturned and landed on him, killing him instantaneously at 9:40 a.m. on August 1, at Lowmans Bay. Jobe was 22 years old.

“I feel really bad knowing I couldn’t have helped him when he get throw out of the truck…but I just believe if help been come earlier, he might have been here today,” said the distraught Stevenson.

Stevenson, an 18-year-old employee at Shop Rite Grocery in Campden Park said that he had gone to help his brother to do some work at Lowmans Bay that morning shortly after 7am. “Me and Webbie been in the truck, but it been getting problems to start it up…so when he got it started now, we started to drive down the hill,” he recalled. Tragedy struck soon thereafter.

On their way down, Stevenson said a vehicle was coming up the hill, so Jobe exerted pressure on the brakes, but the vehicle kept pulling to one side of the road. “When he try to pull back the truck now, I see it skin over and he drop out the truck and it roll pon him,” a bereaved Stevenson added. He said the driver’s door of the vehicle could not close properly and a piece of wire had to be used to close it. All this time, Stevenson said he had placed his hands on the ceiling of the vehicle and held on for dear life as the truck overturned.

After the ordeal, young man managed to escape through the window on the passenger’s side. He was lucky to escape with minor cuts and bruises about his body.

Stevenson said he would always remember the last words his brother said to him before he met his death. “I been telling him that ah man been owe me some money, so all he tell me if the man ain’t pay me, just forget about he,” Stevenson mourned.

A post mortem is to be conducted to ascertain the cause of death.

Meanwhile, owner of the truck, Adolphus “Famo” Adams, with whom Jobe worked at the time of his death, said he is saddened by the death of one his top workmen. “The guy was a good guy and he was almost close to me just like a brother, because he could work very well….I am still in shock that he lost his life,” Adams lamented.

On the morning in question, Adams said Jobe told him that he had come up the hill to collect some dirt, but the truck was not starting. “I told him to leave the truck there, since I was going to the country and when I come back I will fix it, because I knew it was the battery terminal that was slack,” Adams stated.

Upon reaching Gibson Corner, Adams said he received a phone call informing him about what had happened to Jobe. “He used to drive the truck all the time in the yard alone, but nowhere else and it’s just a sad situation that he lost his life,” Adams said.