MARTHA BRAE, Trelawny — Hearts sank at William Knibb Memorial High School here on Tuesday when news emerged that 17-year-old grade 11 student Rodrique Frank succumbed to injuries he received in a motor vehicle crash in his Deeside community on Sunday.

The young man’s passing was especially painful as he was said to have been showing signs of recovery in hospital on Tuesday.

One of his teachers, Tamiann Palmer, recounted that when she visited Rodrique, who was described as well-behaved student with great academic potential, in hospital on Wednesday she observed nurses having to pump oxygen to assist him to breathe.

“When I went in there and I saw my student just in there still, and they’re just there pumping, manually pumping, giving him air, I said to the nurses, ‘Thank you for your services because we continue to use basket to carry water’,” Palmer told the Jamaica Observer.

The expression of gratitude, though, was tinged with annoyance at the apparent absence of proper equipment.

“How is it that you have a hospital, somebody who need a service like this and you don’t have a life support machine? You have to be there pumping, manually pumping air,” she said.

“I am a mother, so it hurt me to the core to see my child, because it’s not just a regular student,” Palmer said, her voice cracking.

The teacher said that on Wednesday, when news came that the injured student was breathing on his own their hopes soared.

“We said wow! Miracle! Okay now, the battle is not over, we need to continue praying. So to get this news this morning [Thursday], and to now be consoling his classmates…” the crestfallen teacher said.

Police report that Frank was thrown from a motorcycle he was driving on the road in his community Sunday night. He was taken to Falmouth Public General Hospital where he was admitted for treatment.

On Thursday, William Knibb Memorial High Vice-Principal Audrey Steele disclosed that examinations at the school had to be suspended Thursday morning after news of Rodrique’s death.

“We had to postpone the exam that he would have sat this morning. We put it off to next week,” a distraught Steele said.

Meanwhile, Councillor Jonathan Bartley (Jamaica Labour Party, Wakefield Division) noted that there have been a number of fatal crashes on the stretch of road between Wakefield and Deeside since was it was paved last year.

“The users of the road must exercise more caution. They appealed for the road and now they get the road they must use it wisely and use it properly. We [are] losing too many of our young people, especially motorcyclists. They are damaging themselves and they damage property. One time they knock down a lightpost and the area was out of electricity for three days,” Bartley said.