ANDREA Lloyd, a 26 year-old lawyer and member of Jamaica’s world renown National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), died in a three-car accident in Kingston early yesterday morning.

Two other members of the NDTC — Janira Bremner and Natalie Chung — as well as a policeman and another man, were also injured in the accident.

Bremner was in critical condition in the University Hospital last night.

According to the Matilda’s Corner police, Lloyd, who was driving a Hyundai Accent motor car, drove across the intersection of Argyle Road, Fairway Avenue and Lady Musgrave Road into the path of an oncoming BMW car. The BMW hit her car, spun around in the road and hit a police vehicle that was coming from the opposite direction. The BMW was being driven by 26 year-old Gregory McDonald of Liguanea Terrace, Kingston 6, while Corporal Winston Gassop was driving the police car. The accident occurred at about 5:00 am.

Both McDonald and Gassop received minor injuries and were treated at hospital and sent home, the police said.

Lloyd, Bremner and Chung, who were travelling in the same car, were taken to the University Hospital where Lloyd was pronounced dead on arrival.

“Janira is critical right now. She is in a coma and we are praying that she makes it,” artistic co-ordinator of the NDTC, Barry Moncrieffe, told the Observer yesterday.

“Natalie is still in hospital but she is not so bad. She got a cut in her face. She also has some internal discomfort but they are doing some tests. She should be okay,” Moncrieffe said.

According to Moncrieffe, it appeared that the three dancers had gone to the oldies party, Good Times, at the Mas Camp Village on Oxford Road, Kingston and were heading home when the accident happened.

“Andrea must have been carrying home Janira when the accident happened because she (Andrea) lives off Red Hills Road,” Moncrieffe said.

He told the Observer that Lloyd had been a member of the NDTC for about six or seven years.

“She started out doing ballet with Monica McGowan, then she went to (Jamaica) School of Dance before coming to the NDTC. She was a good dancer and a great person. She will be greatly missed,” he said.

Artistic director of NDTC, Professor Rex Nettleford, yesterday remembered Lloyd as one of the company’s most promising dancers from the new generation.

“She was highly intelligent, endowed with artistic integrity, disciplined, hardworking — fitting into the ethos of NDTC. We shall miss her,” he said.

Lloyd started out as a supporting dancer with the dance company and gradually moved up to full membership. At the time of her death, she was preparing for the NDTC’s 40th anniversary season scheduled for July/August. Only last week she performed the leading roles in the ‘Praise in Dance and Song’ event to commemorate the NDTC’s 34th anniversary appearance in Scot’s Kirk, dancing inter alia Clive Thompson’s solo to the Black spiritual Motherless Child. According to the NDTC, Lloyd had toured extensively with the company going to Canada, the United States, the Eastern Caribbean and the United Kingdom.

Lloyd was also a junior partner in the Kingston law firm of Piper and Samuda. She is survived by her parents and brother, Stephen.