WESTERN BUREAU:“Don’t handle him body too rough.”Those were the heart-rending words of Susan Harris as funeral workers lifted the body of her 23-year-old son, Theodore Hudson, from the scene of Friday morning’s horrific crash that claimed seven lives in Trelawny.Standing only a few feet away, tears welled in Harris’ eyes as she watched helplessly while the young man she described as the apple of her eye was carried away. At one point, she appeared on the verge of collapsing, but somehow found the strength to remain standing until his body had been removed.Nearby, another grieving mother rolled on the ground in anguish, crying uncontrollably as relatives and onlookers rushed to console her. Too overcome with grief to speak, she had to be helped from the scene.The tragedy unfolded about 7:45 a.m. along the North Coast Highway at Bogue Gate, Trelawny, when a Toyota Regiusace travelling towards St Ann collided head-on with a Hino Dutro truck heading in the opposite direction.According to the police, the Toyota drifted onto the wrong side of the roadway before crashing into the truck. Five men died at the scene, while two others succumbed to their injuries at Falmouth Public General Hospital. Another man remained hospitalised in serious condition. The surviving driver tested negative for alcohol. Investigations into the crash are continuing.For Harris, however, the police investigation could never answer the question that mattered most – why her son would never return home.Theodore, one of her four sons and her third child, had left home only hours earlier.“He was loving,” Harris recalled through tears. “He would kiss me and trouble me just to make me laugh.”She also spoke of a troubling dream she had the previous night, one she now believes foreshadowed the tragedy.The family’s anxiety began mounting when relatives repeatedly called Theodore’s cellphone after hearing about the crash. The calls went unanswered until someone eventually picked up but said nothing. It was only later that the police confirmed their worst fears.Dr Lucien Jones, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council, said while summer traditionally records an increase in road deaths because more people are travelling, that alone did not explain the sharp rise in fatalities.“We did fairly well from January through May and then just an explosion in June and July,” Jones said.Although investigators had not yet determined the cause of Friday’s collision, Jones noted that historical data consistently points to speeding and careless driving as the leading causes of fatal crashes in Jamaica.He said the tragedy once again underscored the urgent need to fully implement the demerit-points system to remove persistently dangerous drivers from the nation’s roads.“When people persist in driving carelessly, you have to find a way to remove them temporarily from the system, retrain them and then reintroduce them,” he said.Long after the ambulances had departed, the enormity of the collision remained etched into the landscape.The mangled wreckage of the two vehicles sat twisted along the highway, while dark pools of oil stained the roadway beneath them. Shoes, flung from the force of the impact, lay scattered along the roadside – silent reminders of lives interrupted in an instant.Apart from investigators and emergency personnel, only clusters of curious onlookers remained, drawn to a scene that had already altered seven families forever.As investigators pieced together what led to one of Trelawny’s deadliest road crashes in recent years, and as funeral workers finally drove off, Harris stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the vehicle carrying her son’s body away.Moments earlier, she had begged them to handle his body gently.It was the last act of love a mother could offer the child she had kissed goodbye only hours before.janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com