Two meet Friday 13th ‘bad luck’

Friday 13 has been labeled a day of badluck. Two men unfortunately found that out last Friday when they were victims of a vehicular crash at Georgetown that left them both with broken legs.{{more}}

Clifren Allen, driver of minibus HR970 “Master” claimed that he lost control of the vehicle upon entering Georgetown shortly after 6a.m. He then collided with a utility pole and a retaining wall, which resulted in Turner Jack, a resident of Byera, sustaining a broken leg.

When SEARCHLIGHT visited Allen at his bedside at the Male Surgical Ward of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) on Sunday morning, his groans were loud enough to tell of his agony.

Allen recounted travelling towards Georgetown when he felt as if he had struck something. “I feel like if I hit something, but I didn’t know what it was,” he said.

The driver who was in the company of the conductor and two other passengers, said the steering wheel “locked” and was hard to control.

“I feel like the steering lock and I try to get the van back on the road but it swerved off the road,” Allen recalled.

He said the van struck a pole to the right side of the road and jammed his leg causing him to accelarate the vehicle, which resulted in him striking Jack, who was seated on a wall close to the utility pole.

“Honestly, me haffi say praise God me alive still eh…When I watch de thing and how it happen, I really have to say thank God I’m alive and the other man come out alive,” he stated.

Since the incident, Allen has not had the chance to speak to Jack, who is situated about five beds from him.

Jack, who complained of neck pains and other injuries to his body, told SEARCHLIGHT that he was waiting on a van to go to work when the unfortunate incident took place.

While sitting on a wall next to a shop at the roadside, the 30 year-old Byera resident who had visited his mother Valcena Jack in Georgetown that morning, said he was checking his backpack to get money to pay the van, which was travelling on the leftside of the road when the accident occured. “From time me do so, de van been done reach up pon me so me couldn’t a do nothing…It jus lick me over the wall and me ain self no me self after that and how I reach hospital,” an aching Jack said.

Although thankful for his life, Jack noted that the accident has placed him in a situation where he can’t work.

“I feel bad because de accident stop my food…I can’t work for a while now,” he lamented.

Jack also suffered injuries to his back, instep, legs and buttocks.

The police are investigating the matter.