BRACO, Trelawny — Three people, including a man and his wife, were killed Thursday in a motor vehicle crash involving a Toyota Coaster bus and Toyota Hiace on the North Coast Highway here in Braco.

Police reported that 22 others were injured in the collision.

The three deceased, all of St Ann addresses, have been identified as 62-year-old driver Newvin Johnson of Liberty Valley; Tomie McCook, and his wife Annette Brown McCook, both 49, of Aberdeen, Brown’s Town.

Police reported that about 1:30 pm Tomie was driving his Toyota Hiace, transporting his wife home following her dialysis treatment, when in an attempt to avoid a crash with another vehicle he reportedly lost control of the vehicle and slammed head-on into a Toyota Coaster bus that was transporting staff to work at Ocean Coral Spring Hotel in Trelawny.

According to one of the hotel workers, Johnson tried desperately to avoid the collision and drove the Coaster bus onto the soft shoulder.

At Falmouth Public General Hospital, Monique Pennant, one of the hotel workers who was travelling in the Coaster bus, appeared dazed. Glass splinters could be still seen on her body and she had a bandaged leg.

“I realised that the driver was slowing down the bus and then I felt the impact. I heard screaming all around me,” she said. “I don’t know how I came out but I came out through the window… and found myself walking,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s wife, Evadnie, was still trying to come to grips with her husband’s death when the Observer spoke with her at the hospital Thursday evening.

The grieving widow described her husband, whom she said was a reliable provider, as a calm individual.

“I was at home when I got the news and I came down here. He was loving, calm, gentle, everything. Him don’t mek we hungry. God Almighty! I can’t believe,” she said, her face contorted with grief.

Over the years, there have been a number of road fatalities in Braco.