'I thought I was going to die'

BARBARIC living conditions and the horror they experienced while they fought hard to escape through a window as fire engulfed the small dormitory at Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre last May, were last week recounted by two survivors in a painful interview with the Sunday Observer.

"It was very scary. I thought I was going to die," said one of the young girls, a 17-year-old who now resides with her mother Claudette in St Mary. "It is the first time that I had ever experienced anything like that."

The other, a 16-year-old who now lives with her mother Ann-Marie in St Catherine, said she too was petrified. "It was scary. I was scared bad, bad," she told the Sunday Observer in a separate interview.

Both were among 16 girls who survived the May 22, 2009 fire sparked by a tear gas canister thrown into their cramped dorm by Constable Lawrence Burrell of the Alexandria Police Station who responded to a call to quell a disturbance created by the girls at the St Ann facility.

A commission of enquiry report by Justice Paul Harrison described Constable Burrell's action as harsh and unnecessary. "No use of such force, even in light of the insulting language used and the excrement thrown by some of the girls, should have attracted such a response. It was an unlawful use of force by the police officer," said Justice Harrison, the highly respected retired president of the Court of Appeal.

The fire resulted in the deaths of seven girls -- Ann-Marie Samuels, Nerrissa King, and Rachael King, all 16 years old; and Kaychell Nelson and Shauna-Lee Kerr, both 15 who all died that night; and Georgina Saunders, 16, and Stephanie Smith, 17, who succumbed to their injuries days later.

Last week, the two survivors who spoke to the Sunday Observer admitted that some of the girls in the dorm were misbehaving on the now infamous night of horror.

The "girls were singing and dancing as they were having a dance", said the 16-year-old, who revealed that she was sent to Armadale after she injured another teen during a fight at her school. The 16-year-old said she received burns on her feet.

The 17-year-old survivor, who received burns to her hands, said she was given over to the State by her mother because of her unruly conduct. She said that some of the girls had taken off a window grille because they were planning to run away.

"When the policeman throw in the tear gas and the room got smoky, I felt my chest tightening, my eyes started to burn me and me and the other girls were running to the back window and I drop. All now, sometimes my chest pain me and my foot, where I got the burn, pain me sometimes," said the 16-year-old.

She said that when she got to the window and was pushing out her head, "One lady (she named a member of the Armadale staff) had piece of stick and was using it to hit us back into the Office Dorm."

She said the correctional officer told them, "F... unno, a dat unno want, a dat unno must get."

The 17-year-old said that she passed out after the tear gas canister was thrown in and regained consciousness after she felt the heat from her hair, which was on fire.

"I had to roll into some of the urine on the floor to put it out and I got up and pushed my way through the window as some of the girls were standing there," she said. "I pushed my hands through the window and one of the correctional officer was trying to help me, but my skin came off in her hands so she had to let me go."

The former ward said she escaped the inferno after she jumped through the window.

The 16-year-old, on the other hand, said she was pulled through the window by correctional officer Caldeen Shaw-Slack, who both girls praised for trying to assist them.

"Miss Slack tried her very best," said the 17-year-old.

The girls also commented on the harsh, inhumane conditions that they said they were subjected to daily during their incarceration.

"My time at Armadale wa s a disaster because the environment was not clean and comfortable," said the 17-year-old. "I had to share a bed with two girls and there was only one bathroom and we were given limited time to use it, so we had to hurry. At nights, there was no bathroom, we had to be using buckets to defecate. Some of the girls used plastic bags or newspaper and sometimes we got infection.

"I got it one time 'cause sometimes when you wash your clothes, if there was no one to hang it out or to let you out to do it, you had to hang it in the dirty bathroom," she said.

The girls also claimed that their meals were not properly prepared and that the kitchen staff often cursed them if they asked for something different. That kind of request, they said, would result in them going to their beds hungry.

"If your hair was not combed you would not get any meal until it was combed, and the teachers hardly attended classes. And though 12 of us were recommended to take CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) exams, we never took any exam," said the 17-year-old.

She also said that they were given "big chairs" to put on their heads to run around the playfield as punishment if they talked during the "silent period" while they were on lockdown.

"Dem treat us bad, and when we ask them for anything they cuss and say 'unno mother lef unno and gone whore down the place'," the 16-year-old said.

Both girls, whose parents are now trying to enrol them into evening schools, were of the view that the bad treatment they received was the reason for their outrageous behaviour.

"The experience was not good enough to help me to be a better person", the 17-year-old said.

The 16-year-old, however, had a different view. "My experience will help me to be a better person, despite everything," she said.

As both girls try to move on with their lives, their parents, who were outraged at the treatment their children received, said they want to be compensated for the injuries to their daughters.

They also called for Constable Burrell, Commissioner of Corrections June Spence-Jarrett, the security guards, and correctional officers, except Shaw-Slack, who were on duty that night, to be dismissed from their jobs and charged.

"I believe Mrs Jarrett should step down, 'cause if she was doing her job she would know about the conditions of the girls," said Ann-Marie.

Both parents said they did not know or suspect that their children were being mistreated as they never got the opportunity to talk privately with them, and the visits -- which were always supervised -- were very short.

They also scolded officials from the centre for not contacting them immediately to inform them that their children were injured in the fire and were hospitalised.

Both said they were first contacted by their daughters on the morning after the incident.

"When I went to the hospital and looked at my child I was so ashamed to see ringworm all over mi pickney. She didn't leave home with no ringworm and she even tell me that she got (vaginal) infection 'cause her panty didn't get any sun, she couldn't hang them up outside so she had to hang them in the bathroom," Ann-Marie explained.

She said when her child told her about the way she was treated, she was shocked and started to behave badly, and even at that point one of the correctional officers was telling her not to talk to her daughter.

"When my child went to Armadale I was saying she would be better 'cause it was a government place and they said she would be well cared for and would be schooled, but I could not believe that the State would take my child and treat her like animal," said Claudette.

Ann-Marie had a similar view. "I though everything would be okay, since it was a government place, but everything was not okay," she said. "They were not protecting our children. They don't care for people's children. They didn't even try to get them out of the fire."

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