KINGSTON, Jamaica — A passer-by who took control of an ambulance after the driver suffered a heart attack while transporting a patient to the Andrews Memorial Hospital last week is encouraging Jamaicans to help each other when in need.

Tirique Wade, who lives on Mountain View Avenue in St Andrew where an ambulance was observed parked along the roadway on Monday, October 28 with the sirens blaring, says he was leaving his friend’s restaurant when he was alerted to the incident.

“We hear the ambulance making noise, but nobody never really know what was wrong. So, when we reach on the scene, we see that the driver had collapsed. He was unconscious and the nurse was hitting him in the chest,” Wade told Observer Online.

Noting that the incident happened across from the Mountain View Police Station and officers also joined the growing crowd, Wade said there was no one on the scene who could drive a stick shift vehicle.

“The police said they can’t drive the jeep. Nobody on the spot can’t drive stick,” he said, adding that a patient was in the back of the vehicle who was also in need of urgent medical attention.

“As far as me hear, the patient met in an accident in front of the cement company, the factory out on Harbour View. So, the ambulance was rushing with him to the hospital. When the ambulance driver reached by the police station, he didn’t feel good, so he pulled over,” Wade explained.

Evaluating the situation, the 24-year-old aspiring recording artiste decided to take quick action.

“So they said ‘you can’t help him?’ I said yeah man, I can drive it,” Wade recalled.

“We took out the driver and put him in the police van back. They (the police) rushed him to the Kingston Public Hospital,” Wade said before revealing, sadly, that the driver later died at hospital.

“The next patient in the back who the driver was going to carry to the hospital now, I had to rush with him go to Andrews, save his life. The rest of it is history,” he added.

For Wade, who said he had never been in such a high-pressure situation, the experience was intense.

“I kind of panicked for a moment but I had to catch myself because we know say we have to help someone who need help. When you have people in need — sometimes we ourselves in need of help with no one to help us — so when you can help out, we try to help out any type of way,” he said.

He praised other community members who were also focused on helping.

“Normally when somebody meet in a situation like this, you would see people taking out their phone, cameras and all these type of things. And there were about 60 odd people on the scene and none of them took out their camera. Everybody was trying to help. So, we learn a lesson, say, instead of you have time to video people, try to help them,” Wade said.

Now he is encouraging Jamaicans to be kind and helpful towards each other.

“Just help out each other because nuff times some people in need and want and have nobody to help them. If we can help each other, Jamaica will be better.  That we look forward to,” Wade said.