‘Mommy, mi ago dead young, enuh’ - Youth who fell from bus step and was run over felt his time on Earth was short

Around 5 p.m. on Monday, Simone Nembhard-Green had just finished cooking a meal for her children when she received a disturbing call. Her son, Amael Clarke, had fallen off the steps of a bus and was ran over by another along the Portmore leg of Highway 2000 in St Catherine.

Reports from the Ferry police are that the 23-year-old was standing on the step of a Toyota Coaster bus, which was travelling along the highway towards Spanish Town, with its door open. He fell from the vehicle and was ran over by the rear wheel. Another Toyota Coaster bus that was travelling behind, also ran him over.

Nembhard-Green said that she had repeatedly begged her son to break the habit of going on fun bus rides.

"Mi nuh know if it is destiny mek Amael go like this because mi always a say 'left di bus mi no like it, yuh can always have the fren dem, just no bother go pon di bus'," the mother of eight said.

"I just finished cooking and shared dinner for his two brothers when l heard his sister scream out and say 'weh yuh mean him drop off a bus?'. Same time mi say 'Jesus Christ, dat muss be Amael' because a him alone always deh pon it," Nembhard-Green said.

The mother revealed that Amael did not work on a bus, but often travelled on the vehicle as it belonged to his friend. The grief-stricken mother added that her son, a former student at Eltham High School in the parish, predicted that he was going to die young because he was a sickler.

"Because him have sickle cell, him always tell me say 'Mommy, mi ago dead young, enuh', and I would say don't say that. Him would say, 'Mommy, memba mi have sickle cell' but I would tell him that can't determine anything."

Nembhard-Green was drowning in her emotions yesterday when THE STAR arrived at her home in Duncan's Pen, in Spanish Town, St Catherine. She struggled to find words to describe her feelings.

"From mi hear mi cyah eat, mi no drink, mi no hungry, nothing. It hard fi process. After l went down there and I saw him, his eyes were wide open like he saw what was coming."

The mother said that her son was not an idler, despite the circumstances behind the manner in which he died.

"Him always say 'Mommy, mi soon dead and mi a guh give yuh 10 pickney fi tek care of and buy yuh a Tiida'. Mi tell him say fi buy mi the Tiida and tek care of yuh pickney dem by yourself. Him is a very jovial person and everybody loved him. Everybody know him because him tint glass for a living, and from him young him always save towards everything he wanted. When he bought his car, him a buy parts for the car before him even finished paying for it. He always wanted to be a trailer driver," she said.

As of March 15, some 94 persons have died as a result of motor vehicle mishaps on the nation's roads.