By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

SIXTY-THREE-year-old Anabel Gibson thought she would die after a truck mowed through a crowd on East Street during the Labour Day parade in June.

“I said to my sister,” she recalled yesterday, “when she came out and realized I had got hit, with the little breath I had I said: ‘Carrol, do you think I’m going to live or die?’ She said ‘no, no, you going to live to declare the glory of the Lord’.”

Ms Gibson has not returned to work since the accident. She said on August 3rd a doctor instructed her to take another three months off.

Speaking to the press as the Public Hospital Authority kicked off “rehabilitation week”, a celebration of professionals who help people recuperate from serious injuries and illnesses, she revealed that she has suffered a fractured hip, a fractured upper arm, a damaged urethra, ulnar nerve injury and a dislocated knee.

Despite all this, she sympathizes with the driver of the Ford F150 truck, saying she hopes the young man can live a life without great feelings of guilt even as police weigh charges against him.

“Because of who I am, I am not angry,” she said.

“I pray everyday for the young man and I pray that he would be healed from this because I think he would’ve suffered as much trauma as those of us who have been in the accident. He’s still young and he has his whole life ahead of him. I pray daily that God would intervene and give him some comfort that he would look forward to day after day.

She continued: “It’s not easy because I’m a mother of three sons and God forbid I wouldn’t want anything like that to happen to them. And if it did I would want people to feel that same way about me. This was an accident and it was real tragic. You don’t want to kill him, you don’t want to destroy him. It is a nightmare. I’ve suffered from nightmares myself so I can’t imagine what he went through as the person who was perhaps at the wheel.”

Ms Gibson recalled the moment the truck raced towards her, saying she blacked-out several times in the aftermath.

“I know the Lord and my faith was grounded and I heard my name screamed out to be aware that a truck was coming down the hill or coming towards me,” she said.

“I looked over and saw that truck and the only thing I could do was take my hands, raise it towards the heavens and scream ‘Jesus!’ And after that for a minute or two I might have blacked, but I caught myself quickly. I had a sister there, I had a mother there, I had a daughter there, and all of them received injuries. They were not like me. They were able to be treated and go home. That day I told someone it made me feel like when Mary and Joseph were going point-to-point asking if they could get a room in the inn because at that time I was on the streets begging for help, asking people to move me, turn me over, sprinkle some water in my face so I could feel comfortable.

“I remember,” she said, “these gentlemen came and put me on the stretcher. They were running from ambulance to ambulance. All they were hearing is ‘it’s full, it’s full’. I remember someone saying, who does that gray van belong to, they said Road Traffic. They said man get her in there. I remember them slithering me up on the side, saying move the chairs on the side there. I know nothing from that point until I got to the hospital. I don’t know if I fell off to sleep. I don’t know if I blacked out. When I realized what was happening to me again, I remember hearing the talk over me again, breathe in, hold your breath, breathe out. I realized then I was in a CTC scan machine.”

Nonetheless, Ms Gibson insisted a distinction must be made between the actions of the driver of the vehicle and people who carry “guns, knives to stab and kill.”

“This didn’t happen in this case,” she said. “We say we’re a Christian nation. At the same time if a person does something, I guess they have to be made responsible for it so I could see responsibility coming. There are lots of forms of responsibility for him. He’s very young…I don’t think he set out to do it.”

The four women who died during the accident were Dianne Elizabeth Ferguson, 55, Kathleen Augusta Fernander, 51, Tabitha Charlene Haye, 41, and Tami Patrice Gibson, 48.

The accident took place in the area of East Street and Shirley Street. In total, 24 people were injured.

The incident forced the end of the parade, the annual celebration of the achievements of workers in the country.