March 29, 2024
Ocho Rios, St. Ann. Jamaica
LATEST NEWS NEWS

Shortly after the anniversary and before the reunion… a nightmare

A wife is reliving the last moments with her husband who died in a crash while she was at the wheel early Sunday morning, July 23.

Dead is Clive McKenzie, 57, tailor of Roaring River, St Ann.

McKenzie and his wife, Donna were travelling in a Toyota motorcar heading east toward Ocho Rios when a Honda Civic motorcar headed west,  toward St Ann’s Bay collided with the Toyota. The crash took place along the Bull Point Road near the Reynolds Pier, Ocho Rios.

According to the CCU, McKenzie, his wife and the driver of the Honda Civic were injured and rushed to hospital, where McKenzie succumbed to his injuries.

The two others were admitted in stable condition.

Several persons took to social media to offer their support to the McKenzie family in their time of grief and express their sympathies.

Donna Woolery-McKenzie, popular teacher at Ferncourt High School, who was hospitalized, says whenever she closes her eyes she can see the crash that ended her husband’s life.

She has pains in her chest, lower back and abdomen.

Two teenage US citizens who are her husband’s relatives were also hospitalized, one with a broken leg.

Reports to the North Coast Times are that a passenger in the vehicle that collided with the Toyota driven by Mrs Woolery McKenzie was airlifted to Kingston and the driver had minor injuries and was treated at St Ann’s Bay hospital.

HURT

Mrs Woolery-McKenzie told the North Coast Times that she feels emotionally hurt every time someone comes asking her to tell what happened. “Sometimes as they leave and I’m alone I just break down and cry again. Sometimes I cry right before them.”

Mrs Woolery McKenzie says “I dread going home…He is not going to be there. He is not just my husband he is my friend… My friend who talks about me so much and I (talk) about him all the time.”

The McKenzies were coming from the airport in Montego Bay. They were ahead of three other cars with relatives and friends. It was another family trip to the airport where they had been meeting Mr McKenzie’s relatives who had been coming in for a family reunion this weekend, Saturday, July 29.

Mrs McKenzie was at the wheel and remembers hearing a loud blast from a motor vehicle coming around a slight bend in the road near the Helipad port. She said the next thing she knew was the vehicle slammed into the right side of her car, near the front fender.

TAXI DRIVER ACTS

She didn’t hear any sounds or cries from her husband who was in the passenger seat. But as soon as a crowd began to gather she realized he was in serious condition. She said she was calling out for someone to help her husband but nobody did. All were just talking and pointing. She said a taxi operator came on the scene, scolded people and moved them out of the way and helped remove her husband from the car. She then exited by the passenger side as the driver’s door could not open.

The teenagers in the back of the car were taken out as well and taken to hospital.

One of the few things she remembers at the scene was her son who was in another of the cars calling out: “Mommy Daddy! dem kill mi mother and father.”

She said at the hospital no one told her husband had died but, in being taken for treatment, she passed an area where he had been carried.

She said she could see him wrapped in a white sheet. She then heard his phone ringing in his trousers pocket. Later she saw him being moved away and knew he was dead.

Mrs Woolery McKenzie said the last thing she and her husband were speaking about was getting food in Ocho Rios for the teenagers and children in the arriving party. That’s him. Always caring.  Always looking about others.

Clive McKenzie and Donna Woolery were longtime friends and in a relationship, for some 26 years. They married six years ago. Last week Sunday was their sixth wedding anniversary.