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Believing it was by the grace of God that their three daughters survived. Now homeless, the family also worries about their 62-year-old relative, who was seriously injured when a taxi slammed into their house on Old Harbour Road in St Catherine.

The incident occurred around 10:00 p.m., just outside the Jamaica Broilers Group head offices. By dawn on Friday, all that remained of their home was a gutted wooden structure, smashed furniture, appliances, clothing and other debris. Raquel Brown and her partner, Oshane Ellis, are grateful for their children's lives but are now searching for answers and help.

Brown said it seemed as if her one-year-old sensed what was about to happen. The child wiggled out of her grandfather's arms and walked into another room. Her sisters, aged nine and 14, were nearby. They had just been sent to bed but moved slowly, which may have helped save them. Seconds later, chaos erupted.

"I was sitting in my room and I just felt the whole place start shaking. I screamed out to my baby father, 'Earthquake!' But by the time I looked around, it was the car I saw. If I leaned over, I would be able to touch it,"Brown recounted. Her first thought was for her children. Then she saw the driver exit the car and run past her.

"Me ask him wah happened? and him seh 'mummy me don't know wah gwaan'," she said. "Same time I heard my one-year-old baby, and I said 'help me nuh, come help', and him flash of my hand and run. Me did a try run him down but when I remembered my three pickney dem I turned back," she noted. She later found them injured, but safe.

Her father-in-law, Joshua Ellis, 62, was pinned under the vehicle as passengers, three women and two men fled the scene in fear. The baby was unharmed, the 14-year-old had a leg injury, and the nine-year-old suffered a concussion. According to Ellis' son Oshane, It took minutes before onlookers realised he was pinned under the car, and about nine men to hoist the vehicle from off of him before he was finally rushed to hospital.

The girls were released from hospital early Friday morning while Ellis, however, remains admitted with a broken leg and broken ribs.

In all the chaos, some people turned up started to help while others looted the scene, one man making away with Brown's handbag containing bank and identification cards. The bag was later returned with the bank cards missing. With nowhere else to sleep her baby's father is contemplating moving his family in with his mom elsewhere..

As of late Friday morning, the Old Harbour police have yet to confirm the identity or arrest the driver of the motor vehicle. Meanwhile the traumatised couple, who had been living at the location for about a year, said they have no desire to remain, even if the house is repaired.

Brown is a call centre operator, while Ellis is a bus conductor. They have lost at least two televisions, beds, and other belongings in the disaster and are begging for assistance.

"Right now, I don't know where we are going to sleep tonight," said Brown, as she looked down at her one-year-old daughter clinging to her legs.

- Corey Robinson

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