Boy crushed to death in schoolyard

T r agedy struck the Clan Carthy Primary School yesterday as seven-year-old student Seymour Benjamin was mowed down by a garbage truck on the compound.

Seymour was among a group of students waiting for their parents to pick them up when the accident occurred.

"The truck was parked up under the mango tree and was moving some trash that dem cut down from the weekend. Well, the children dem was playing up unda the waiting area, and the truck was revving, but no one wasn't in the truck. My back was turned. So mi hear the rev a get harder and harder, so a look mi look round now and see the truck a come. The truck come straight towards me, all mi cudda do is just jump up off a chair," Noel, security guard at the school, told THE STAR.

Noel said he watched in a daze as the truck sped towards the children.

"Mi see it lick the sign post, the notice board. Yuh did have a taxi park there, and the truck lick the taxi, and it kinda slow it down mek more pickney don't dead. A mi shout the pickney dem and dem start chuck from all bout," he said. "The likkle boy deh right inna di middle, and mi see when the truck lick him inna di concrete bench dem, and turn ova pan him."

Fire trucks and wreckers soon came on the scene, as persons tried to save young Seymour who was now stuck underneath the truck, one hand reportedly severed. But their efforts were in vain.

Fled the scene

A female student and a female passenger in the taxi were also injured in the accident and taken to hospital. The truck driver reportedly fled the scene.

Upon hearing of the accident, a crowd of onlookers gathered at the school gates. Among them were anxious parents, waiting to be let on to the compound to see if their children were safe.

One parent told THE STAR that her son narrowly missed the accident.

"Normally, my son do extra lesson a evening time, and mi come from work, and one mind just seh mek mi stop over the school and collect him," she said. "I don't think it was 45 minutes after mi hear him father call mi breathless, a ask mi if him deh school or if him deh home. Mi haffi just lift up mi hand same time and thank Jesus is not my child, but it could have been my child."

But it wasn't just the parents who were feeling the anguish of this tragedy. Other onlookers expressed their shock.

"Mi feel like a fi mi own. Mi nuh know di likkle boy, but trust mi, mi feel it," one woman said.

"Him inna di same class as mi son, a cudda my pickney," another woman added.

At minutes to 7 p.m., a funeral home took Seymour's body to the morgue. His mother was unable to come to the scene as relatives told THE STAR that she had to be rushed to hospital after hearing the news.

"Him nuh deserve fi dead like this," one relative screamed.