Speed and booze caused fatal WB road smash

(CNS): A jury sitting in the Coroner’s Court Tuesday returned a verdict of death by misadventure after hearing the details of a fatal road collision on 21 November 2015, when 21-year-old Jamaican national, Lanado Martin Waugh, was killed. The jury heard that Waugh was alone in his car, travelling south at almost 79 miles per hour along the West Bay Road when his Honda Accord struck a traffic island as he approached the small roundabout by Galleria Plaza. His blood alcohol level was found to be almost two and a half times over the limit.

When emergency personnel arrived at the scene minutes after the crash in the early morning hours, they found that Waugh was trapped in the badly damaged car. Shortly afterwards he was pronounced dead at the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town. According to the postmortem findings, he died as a result of severe blunt trauma injuries to his chest and abdomen.

Giving evidence to the jury, the accident reconstructionist said that the car’s undercarriage was the first thing to strike the traffic island before hitting another curb edge, going air born and then sustaining several further impacts on the curbs, asphalt, trees and bushes in the area. The car finally came to a stop when it crashed into the wall of Agua restaurant.

With no other vehicle involved and with the help of the CCTV footage, the expert was able to calculate the car’s speed and said that it appeared from the scene that Waugh had taken no evasive action and was not steering the vehicle in line with the road before the collision.

The coroner told the jury there was no evidence that Waugh had tried to take his own life or that anyone else was involved, leaving them only two possible outcomes: death by misadventure or an open verdict. Given the evidence before the court, the jury unanimously found that this was a case of misadventure.