Family struggles after Tank-Weld driver dies in on-the-job crash

Sharon Silvester* is a broken woman. Ever since losing her son a month ago, her world has been a strange place, where sleep eludes and tears visit her nightly.

Silvester’s 27-year-old son, Kirk Gooden, an employee of Tank-Weld Metals, died in a motor vehicle accident while working in Portland on January 14. He was the driver of the vehicle.

According to reports, some time after 10 a.m. on the fateful day, Gooden was driving the truck when he failed to manoeuvre a corner along the Orange Bay main road in Portland. As a result, the unit overturned and crashed into a building which housed a bar and a club.

Gooden, who had to be cut from the mangled vehicle, was pronounced dead on the spot by a doctor.

A male passenger, who was also hurt in the crash, was taken to the Annotto Bay Hospital in an unconscious state.

The accident is still under investigation, but Gooden, a resident of Olympic Gardens, St Andrew, perished leaving three children behind – the youngest being a three-year-old daughter.

Last Tuesday, Silvester held back tears as she spoke of how life has changed for her grandchildren, their mother, and herself since Gooden’s passing. As she awaits an autopsy, Silvester shied away from looking at a life-size cardboard cutout of her son that relatives made in his memory.

The reality that he is gone stabs her heart every time she sees it, she said, and medication does little to assuage the emptiness she feels inside. Her son was a hard and dedicated worker, but now there is barely enough funds to provide food or send his children to school daily.

The children’s mother, she said, is on the brink of giving up. Juggling her lowly job and taking care of the children has been a strain for her, even as Silvester tries her best to help out. But Gooden was also his mother’s breadwinner, supplying a community cook shop she operated. Since his death, that business has also dried up.

Tank-Weld last week confirmed Gooden’s contractual employment and death but declined to speak to the matter, which the company said was under investigation.

With limited information, Silvester told The Sunday Gleaner that at night, her head swells with theories of her own.

“He had been working at Tank-Weld for many years, but he was only recently promoted, less than a year ago, to drive trucks. I didn’t want him to drive trucks,” the despondent mother said, regretful she was not more vocal about her fears.

Several times after being promoted, she said her son complained that the truck he was operating had to be taken for repairs. At other times, she claimed, he bemoaned that the vehicle, which transported materials across parishes, was operating overloaded.

The complaints, she said, kept her up at night, particularly when Gooden went on long drives, or when he complained about a problem on the vehicle. Soon her worst fears came true, she said, her eyes welling up with tears.

“January the 14th, I got a call in the morning that he met in an accident. They said the truck turned over in Portland and he is not moving,” the mother said, her voice sunken. “I dropped down three times and couldn’t even talk. Him is my ‘eyeball’, you know!”

The news has since rendered her dependent on blood pressure and sleeping tablets. And in the face of the financial and emotional strain that follows her son’s absence, those medications are impotent.

Weeks after the accident, Silvester said she was summoned by the company to a meeting where she was told she was the beneficiary of an insurance policy that he had. That money would take some time to process, which the mother said she understands.

Her immediate request, however, is for her son’s last salary of just over $100,000, for which she said she was told there was no named beneficiary, and thus she could not access.

That money, she explained, would go a long way to offset the challenges his family currently faces, while getting through each day.

“They said that for me to get that pay, I had to get a lawyer. But where am I going to get money for a lawyer?” she asked. “It has been hard. The kids have [the same] mother, and yesterday they didn’t have enough to go to school,” bemoaned the woman, continually turning away from the image of her son beside her.

Tank-Weld insisted that it would not comment publicly on its employees’ private affairs.

“The investigation into this accident is still ongoing and it would be remiss of us to share confidential information surrounding the investigation and surrounding Mr Gooden’s private affairs,” a response from the company said.

“Mr Gooden’s family met with Tank-Weld representatives a few days after the accident and all relevant information was discussed and shared with them ... . We understand that team members have also been in contact with his family on a personal level,” the company added.

“The process that both TW and Mr Gooden’s family have to follow can be tedious but we exert our best efforts to expedite the parts of it that we can.”

Name changed upon request*

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com