Family prays relative pulls through after fiery mishap

The family of 19-year-old Dantae Francis was shocked when the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Corporate Communications Network (CCN) issued a press release stating that he died in a fiery motor vehicle crash.

"Mi frighten when mi hear seh police seh mi grandson dead. Mi grandson dung a [Kingston] Public [Hospital]. Mi talk to him this morning and by the grace a God him a guh pull through," declared Dantae's grandmother Donna Lawrence. She also told THE STAR that the news has been severely affecting her daughter, Dantae's mother, and the family needs it corrected.

"Them need to fix it because it deh all over the media seh mi grandson dead and it nuh feel good fi see. People a call mi and a tell mi seh mi grand pickney dead and them things deh," Lawrence said. She said that this experience is bringing back painful memories because her first grandchild died at age five in a fire, while Dantae is recovering from the burns that could have taken his life.

Dantae was one of multiple persons injured in the crash that claimed the lives of three people on Marescaux Road in Kingston early Sunday morning. In a press release, the CCN stated that Tavaugn Miller, 26, of Regent Street, Kingston, and Andre Wright, 33, of Anderson Road, also in Kingston, as well as Dantae had perished while four others were injured. However, the third deceased has since been identified as 20-year-old Kawayne Fearon. When THE STAR visited his home, his family was gathered discussing his kind and jovial personality.

"He was so loving, always playing, always running his jokes and he loved children. Anywhere you see him, kids always surround him because he was such a caring person," said Kawayne's aunt Nadine Fearon. His parents were also there, were too stricken with grief to speak.

Similarly, when THE STAR visited the home of Miller's brother Kyle Stewart, he found himself struggling to stand upright and could only mumble the words "Right now mi weak, mi just cah believe mi likkle bredda gone."

- K.T.