By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

A MALE tourist was struck by a vehicle at the pedestrian crossing on Seahorse Road in Freeport as his family watched in horror.

The traffic accident happened sometime around noon Monday in front of the bus stop on the southbound lane.

When The Tribune arrived at the scene, a crowd of onlookers had gathered in the area watching as the man lay helpless in the road with severe leg injuries. He was unable to move.

The man, his wife and two daughters, were on vacation in Grand Bahama. The family had just left Solomon’s Foodstore with a cart of grocery bags and was in the process of catching a bus when the accident occurred.

According to a witness, the father had carried some of the grocery bags across the street to the bus stop and was going back to fetch the others when he was struck by a dark-coloured Dodge Neon, which was driven by a male driver.

A number of persons assisted the man as he lay on the road. A woman who was either a nurse or some kind of first responder got a first-aid kit from her car and tended to the man, checking his blood pressure and making sure he remained conscious and responsive by talking to him and asking him questions. The man’s wife and two daughters were at his side throughout the ordeal.

Another woman brought a towel on which to rest his head. Jitney driver Steven Lewis said he had stopped at the bus stop to pick up the man and his family when the accident occurred.

“He had brought some grocery bags over to the bus stop,” Mr Lewis recalled.

A male passenger in the Neon claimed that the man never looked before proceeding onto the crosswalk.

Two nurses from the Rand Memorial Hospital were also at the scene and wrapped the man’s ankle.

A police officer on a motorcycle arrived at the scene and met a bystander redirecting traffic on the busy highway directing motorists to the other lane away from the injured man.

The ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later and took the man and his family to the hospital.