SALT MARSH, Trelawny — “She really dead, Mum? She really dead?” Keisha Flemmings asked from the US on Friday. Her mother-in-law Beverly McIntosh had just told her that her 14-year-old daughter Tashanti Jones had been killed in a car crash.

The two women were bound together by the gut-wrenching grief that comes with losing a child. McIntosh’s son, 31-year-old cabinet maker Hoydean Flemmings — Keisha’s husband of only two weeks — was also among the dead. Twenty-one-year-old Brandon Gordon also died in the crash, which occurred on the Salt Marsh roadway in Trelawny.

A distraught McIntosh struggled to absorb the fresh grief that was being added to emotional toll taken by an earlier tragedy.

“Mi don’t know how mi going make it because mi lose me [other] daughter 2018 and it gave mi a stroke. Mi go America and did surgery. I can’t even see that much but mi give thanks. So mi just hope and pray,” McIntosh said.

She said tragedy struck moments from their home while Flemmings was making his usual trip.

“I know in the mornings he always brings the kids to school. He took the early kids and this one [Tashanti] on evening shift,” McIntosh revealed.

“The doctors were trying but she didn’t make it. When I reached the hospital one of her eyes was opened,” she added.

At Muschett High School where little Tashanti was a 10th grader, afternoon classes were suspended to allow students — including her younger sister — and teachers time to grieve.

“Speaking with the vice-principal and a couple other members of staff, it was a really, really sad day at Muschett, especially for the school on the afternoon shift,” a grief-stricken principal Leighton Johnson told the Observer by phone from the US where he is on vacation.

“The staff is just trying to engage in grief counselling and hold the students together as best as possible. Her form teacher, her immediate classmates and the entire school community is really, really saddened by this,” he added.

According to a police report, the crash took place about 10:30 am on Friday when a Toyota Wish motor car, driven by Flemmings, was travelling behind a Suzuki Grand Vitara on the Greenside main road, heading towards Falmouth.

The Suzuki Grand Vitara was in the process of turning off the road to a car wash on the right when the Toyota Wish, which was overtaking a line of traffic, collided into the right side of the Suzuki.

The impact resulted in the driver of the Toyota Wish losing control of the vehicle which careened off the road and ended up in a ditch before slamming into a concrete wall.

Flemmings and Gordon died on the spot, while Tashanti was rushed to the Falmouth Public General Hospital. However, she died while undergoing treatment.

The lone occupant of the Suzuki Grand Vitara was also taken to hospital for treatment.

The Falmouth police are investigating.

A distraught Beverly McIntosh, who lost her son and his stepdaughter in the crash. (Photo: Horace Hines)