BEENIE Man – one of Jamaica’s most popular entertainers – was last night in a serious but stable condition at the St Joseph’s Hospital in Kingston, after suffering injuries when his Hummer sports utility truck crash along the Mandela Highway in St Catherine early yesterday morning.

“The prognosis is good and from all reports the doctors are confident he will recover,” said Clyde McKenzie, general manager of Beenie Man’s promotions company, Shocking Vibes.

“He did an operation to remove fluid from his lungs and it lasted about 45 minutes. He has an injury to his lung but it is not life threatening,” McKenzie told the Observer last night.

The entertainer, whose real name is Moses Davis, was admitted to the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine, but later transferred to St Joseph’s, a private medical facility.

Beenie Man, according to hospital sources, sustained broken ribs, punctured lung, chest and head injuries and serious body lacerations, when his Hummer got out of control, overturned and rolled over and then fell into a ditch along the highway.

According to the Central Village police, at about 3:45 am yesterday, Beenie Man was driving his Hummer motor vehicle, fitted with personalised registration plates – MOSES – along the Mandela Highway, when he failed to negotiate a corner at the section of the road which was recently built to accommodate the construction of Highway 2000.

The vehicle, the police said, ran off the road, overturned several times before ending up in the ditch.

Beenie Man was taken from the vehicle by passing motorists who took him to the Spanish Town Hospital where he was admitted. However, four hours later he was transferred to St Joseph’s.

The twisted remains of the Hummer, which was later removed to the Central Village Police Station, had the fibre glass body of the front and left sides and roof caved in, right front wheel broken from the axle and the rim of the left front wheel bent and the twisted tyre falling off.

“As you look at the damage you know that speeding was the cause of the accident,” an officer at the Central Village Police Station told the Observer.

According to the policeman, because of the high speed the vehicle was believed to be travelling at, when the driver came upon the bend he could not negotiate the right hand corner in the new lanes provided, ran into the rubber barriers, then overturned. “A God save him,” said the police officer, who with two of his colleagues were taking a look at the wrecked Hummer parked in the station yard.

The police also alleged that the types of injures sustained suggested that the entertainer was not wearing his seatbelt. “. If he had on his seat belt the injures wouldn’t be so severe,” the officer said.

The Hummer, a sports utility truck built by US automaker General Motors, cost about J$14 million.