‘It’s so hard to know that I have to bury my last child’
JOY Jones is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her daughter who was one of two people who died in a motor vehicle crash in Clarendon on Tuesday.
Heather Jones Grant, 34 years old, and her brother-in-law Nigel Ambersley died as a result of injuries they received from the collision.
Jones told the Jamaica Observer that she knew something was wrong the moment she heard a female scream.
“I was on my way to pick up my grandson from school and I called Heather and we were there talking. She asked if I eat already and I told her, ‘No, I don’t eat anything yet, I am going to get the baby’ and she said, ‘okay’. While I was on the phone with her I heard a female scream and the phone cut off, after that I tried to get the three phones and they ring without answer,” Jones recalled.
She said her daughter, and her husband, left to go to Linstead, St Catherine, to drop off her stepdaughter and her husband who were both visiting the island to spend some time with her relatives.
Several frantic attempts to reach her children yielded no results so the worried mother, desperate for answers, called her son overseas.
“I called my son in Canada and told him that something went wrong and that I was trying to get them but no answer and he said, ‘I hope nothing is wrong’. He called several times and then a lady answered and asked if he was a relative to the persons and he said yes and she say it’s not fatal, but she did not say anything about the female and the other deceased,” she told the Observer.
“Just as I walked into the yard, my phone ring and a lady who I knew for a long time say ‘when was the last time you talk to you daughter?’ and me say ‘come on tell me’. She then said, ‘you inna good shape’, and mi say, ‘yes, mi strong because mi know say something happen’.
The woman then asked Jones where was her daughter headed and she replied Linstead.
“She say, ‘well, they have an accident’ and mi say ‘mi know’,” Jones shared with the Observer.
“She say, ‘how you know’ and mi say, ‘I feel it and based on the conversation with her and the scream that I hear I know something went wrong’,” added Jones.
The woman then told Jones that the females had been taken to the hospital while the males who were in the front of the vehicle were pinned in the wreck and were badly injured.
Jones said soon after that conversation, her other daughter called and confirmed her worst fear, her daughter died in the crash.
According to the police report, Grant and Ambersley along with two other persons were travelling in a Toyota Starlet heading toward May Pen about 1:30 pm on Tuesday when the driver of 0f Nissan Latio attempted to overtake a line of traffic along the Osbourne Store main road in Clarendon.
The two vehicles collided and all five people in the two cars were taken to the May Pen Hospital where Grant and Ambersely died and the others admitted in serious but stable condition.
Jones described her daughter as a very hard-working, honest and kind individual.
“She was everything you could ever hope for. The last thing she do before leaving home, she hug mi and gave me a small bottle of sanitiser and say. ‘here mommy, I giving you this because I love you’ and she say mi soon come and I say hurry up, and take care.
“Ambersley hug mi and say come to my birthday which would be later this month and her husband hug mi and I said take care. Marlon come and call me from outside and say, ‘mum, mi soon come back,’ and I tell him the same, to take care. Michelle, who is my stepdaughter, and her husband were visiting, he also died. It is so hard to know that I have to bury my last child,” lamented Jones.