Girl, 14, killed in Christmas Day crash

ONLY MINUTES after members of the Joseph family left their Morvant home on Christmas Day, they were plunged into grief as a two-car accident took the youngest member of their family, and left four other persons, including two family members, injured. Dead is Kelly Joseph, 14, also known as “Pumpkin,” a Form Two student of Barataria Junior Secondary School, who was pronounced dead on arrival at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital after the crash at Eastern Main Road and McAllister Street, Laventille. Also injured in the accident were Shane Joseph, the driver of the car in which Joseph was killed, and her cousin Shervon Gibson who sustained injuries to her head, neck and arm.

Ortillio Osuna, 48, Akil Davis, 22, and Sigel Burgis, 19 were also injured. According to reports, Joseph was proceeding west to Port-of-Spain along the Eastern Main Road with his sister in the passenger seat, when a car driven by Ortilio Osuna slammed into them. All three were rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where Kelly died in surgery. Her cousin Gibson was treated and discharged, while her brother Shane remains hospitalised. Osuna and Burgis are hospitalised with broken legs, while Davis was treated and discharged. When Newsday visited the family’s Poinsettia Drive home in Morvant, Shervon related her experience. “We were proceeding to Port-of-Spain to drop off something before we go to the airport, when on reaching by the gas station in Laventille we saw a car swerving in the road coming to us. Kelly shouted ‘look out’ and next thing I know I was opening my eyes on the road with medical persons around me.

“I saw Kelly’s back to me and Shane lying nearby. It was sometime later I found out my cousin was dead.” Kelly, a born-again Christian, was described as a cool, nice, well-respected girl by a number of persons interviewed by Newsday. Sources also revealed that several bottles were removed from a car involved in the accident. Sandra Caine, the dead girl’s mother, described Joseph as the baby of the family. “I leave everything in God’s hand. He brought her into the world and he knows what he is doing when he took her away. I pray for the driver of the other car and who was with him.

“I was in church when I heard the news. When I went to the scene and saw the cars, I knew something was wrong. “When I got the news, I was not shocked. I have left it all in the hands of God.” Joseph and her mother had exchanged Christmas gifts earlier that morning. The St Vincent-born teen came to TT when she was six months old. Her death brings the number of persons killed on the roads to 201, which is two more than the total number of persons killed last year.