Rastman helps family trapped in horrific vehicle inferno

When Herbert ‘I-Ras’ Walter St Hillaire saw three persons screaming for help in a burning sport utility vehicle (SUV), he did not think about what could happen to him if he got close, he just knew he had to help in any way he could.

“I does always say we born to help one another; the Father design all ah we to help one another,” the dreadlocked man told SEARCHLIGHT last Wednesday.{{more}}

Last Tuesday, at around 4:45 p.m. at McKies Hill, a Suzuki Escudo PM 618 caught fire. The vehicle was being driven by its owner, Cornelia Quashie of Cane End. Cornelia’s sister Lucinda Quashie and another family member, six-year-old Johanie Quashie-Browne were also in the vehicle when it caught fire. All three occupants became trapped.

When the fire started, Cornelia lost control of the vehicle, causing it to roll backwards and hit PN 861, which was being driven by Doris-Ann Cupid of Murray’s Village. Cupid also lost control of her vehicle which also rolled backwards and hit a parked car PT 61.

Reliving what he described as a “horrific incident,” St Hillaire, 60 years old, said that he was sitting in his yard with some other persons when they heard a loud explosion.

“We look up dey and we see a big smoking in the air. So one of the brethren who was sitting there, he said leh we run go out dey and see what happening, but my mind was telling me it sound like a vehicle catch afire,” said the Rastafarian.

He said that when he ran to the road, he saw a vehicle rolling backwards and that vehicle struck a vehicle behind it and the second vehicle in turn struck a third vehicle, this one parked.

“…so I now looking, blazing real fire anah. A man come down and say ‘try and open the door, try and open the door,’ so I go by the door and try and open the door, and when I look inside I see a lady really on fire…burning, she clothes like it was burning off she,” recalled St Hillaire on Wednesday, sitting at his McKies Hill home.

The devout Rasta said that when he observed further, one of the women was so badly burnt that he thought he was looking at the seat of the vehicle. He said that another Good Samaritan took out the screaming little boy, but they could not get out the two women, as the fire was blazing inside the vehicle.

“I call and tell the man dem bring up the water, I start to throw water and out down the fire on top the woman and I out the fire and then we take out the other lady on the other side,” said St Hillaire, who recalled that the woman on the passenger side was harder to remove from the vehicle as she was much bigger than the driver.

“We try turn she, because the seatbelt actually like melt and burst way on top she chest. When she try move, like she skin just tear off on top the seat and she turn around and her body was exposed so I tell them leh we get something to cover her up with and my sister-in-law bring up a sheet and we wet it down and we put it around her,” recalled St Hillaire, who revealed that one sheet was not enough to cover the burnt lady, so another sheet was soaked and put over her.

“We trying to cover her up and cool her down and all she keep saying is ‘wet me foot, wet me foot’.”

The Good Samaritan said they called the ambulance, which, he said, took between 35 and 45 minutes to arrive.

“…we dey dey, we dey dey. We been dey a good while,” he said.

He said that in modern times like these, with so many advances in technology, the ambulance should not have taken so long to arrive on the scene, as the area where the fire took place is “right in town here and ambulance can’t reach so long.

“Waiting on the ambulance…we was saying let us put her in another vehicle, but I say you might tear up this woman skin and mash up this woman; the best for us to do is to cool her down and let the ambulance come and they will be able to take her up better…so the ambulance came and they brought a stretcher and some big strong man come down from the gym and we kinda push open the door better to help she, cause is a big lady and we kinda bring back the seat so we coulda get space for she to come out and then we take her out and get her on top of the stretcher and take her, carry her inside the ambulance….it was a lot of fire man.”

St Hillaire, who received small burns on his arm said that at first when he tried to open the passenger door of the SUV, it was so hot that he had to let go and a man came with a cutlass and held the door open. He said that he threw about three buckets of water into the vehicle and that put out the fire.

“Three buckets of water, four is the final one actually. I conquer it fast, I throw on she and I wet she down fast, because oh man, it was horrible fire anah, seeing them woman burning in there, you think it easy? I never see nothing so in my physical life. The other one did actually, she done burn on her side. I dragging the seat dey and when the fella pull she out from the other side I say ‘wait is a person been dey boy?’

“I think is a seat there, but is the woman there, burn black. To me she might lose an eye. I don’t know if the eye might be good. It was real, real, real serious, I never see nothing so serious,” stressed St Hillaire.

He said that he thinks that if he wasn’t on the scene to get water so quickly from his home, the women might have burnt to death.

“If I wasn’t there, where they woulda get water? If it was lower down or higher, what woulda happen? They woulda die by the time we reach and run up dey to throw water inside dey. It just like Father Almighty Jah bring the car right here,” philosophized St Hillaire, who is also of the view that nobody is on the earth by mistake.

“Is not no mistake that we dey here, and you dey here and I dey here. Is not no mistake we the way we is; we born to help one another. A plan done build for us to live together and be together and as long as we do good, we go stay good and good will always come to us.”

St Hillaire said that in his opinion, when bad things happen to us, we must reflect on our life and see why “a little judgment pass”.

He added, “sometimes we do so and we buss ah chop on we own hand and you say boy me ain’t do nobody nothing, but sometimes when you study back, you do something bad.

“I try live life as a needle point, trying to do good all the way,” stressed the McKies Hill resident, who described himself as a jack of all trades, with know-how in farming, carpentry, and plumbing. He said he was even once a boat captain.

Yesterday, Lucinda Quashie succumbed to her injuries at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. Her sister Cornelia is still warded in the Intensive Care Unit there.

It is not certain how the fire started.(LC)