Tragedy in Petersville
PETERSVILLE, Westmoreland — Two 13 year-old boys from this community were yesterday killed in a traffic mishap as they rode a bicycle to school. They were run over by a car at about 8:15 am after reportedly losing control of their bicycle, which ran across the path of the oncoming vehicle.
The teens, identified as Romain Lawson and Andre McInnis, received severe head injuries. They were taken to the Black River Hospital where they were pronounced dead.
A grief-stricken Pauline Fowler, Andre’s mother, wept yesterday as she recalled the last time she saw her son alive.
“I was combing the hair of one of the girls when he told me that he was going to school and him soon come back, it was the last time I saw him alive. He was a nice boy, very obedient, and I always trouble him saying that he is so short he is not growing,” she said.
She has five other children, but Andre stood out.
“When he came in from school he would do anything that I want him to do,” she said as she wept bitterly.
Romain’s mother, Ethlyn Gordon, was no less distraught about her son’s death.
Weeping openly, she spoke of how much she had looked forward to seeing him grow up.
Both parents said they had frequently warned the boys against riding to school but the teens ignored them, saying the bicycle was the best way to get there.
One resident, who declined to give his name, said the young boys should never have been riding a bicycle without a brake, especially off a slope leading onto the main road. He added that sometimes boys were seen engaged in the dangerous activity of riding on the poorly lit Petersville Road during the night.
As a result of yesterday’s fatal accident, classes were suspended for the day at the Petersville All-Age School where the boys were students. The entire community mourned the loss of the two young lives.
Ironically, the driver of the car that claimed the boys’ lives — Oneil Forrest, 28 — was in another traffic accident last month.
His car collided with a truck in that incident, but he and his passengers escaped injury.
