Imagine being a nurse at the St Ann’s Bay Hospital and you get into the mind frame to receive the patients from a traffic crash.
You rush to the patient and the realization creeps in that it is a loved one—your brother.
That was the reality that Pauline Gooden’s daughter, Ann-Marie Green-Berry had to face on Wednesday night, September 13. The man they called son and brother, 29-year-old Leslie Gooden, otherwise called Richard, had been brought into the St Ann’s Bay hospital, groaning and in pain after a traffic crash some miles away.
Sadly, Gooden succumbed to his injuries later that night and has left a family struggling to come to the reality that he will not return to them.
Leslie Gooden, an auto mechanic, was driving from St Ann’s Bay and heading west, towards Salem, when tragedy struck on the Llandovery main road.
The police reports had stated that at about 8:30 p.m., Gooden was driving a Honda Accord motor car along the roadway when the vehicle collided with a Honda Stream motorcar that was attempting to overtake a tractor-trailer.
Both drivers were taken to hospital.
In an interview with the North Coast Times, Gooden’s mother, Pauline Gooden, related the events that took place at the hospital, when her injured son was taken. Her daughter, Ann Marie, who is a nurse, was on duty at the time.
“She (Ann Marie) was the one who received the accident patients. When she went for the mask and the gloves, and came back to attend to the person that is the time that she got the shock that it was her own brother. I understand that she could not attend, because she was just screaming out and shouting his name saying ‘Is my brother! Is my brother!’” Mrs Gooden recounted.
According to her, her son had a small cut over his eye, but his body had no cuts on it. However, a doctor said that there was internal damage on his left side.
“He (Leslie Gooden) was still alive. His sister said that Richard (Leslie Gooden) just kept on groaning… He made movements and was moaning,” Mrs Gooden reflected.
She said that her daughter told her that she kept on praying after the doctors were trying to treat Leslie. However, when there was no more groaning to be heard coming from Mr Gooden, the worst was realized. When Mr Gooden’s sister enquired from a nurse if he had died, the painful truth was confirmed.
“She (Ann Marie) is devastated… It is her only brother, so you can imagine,” Mrs Gooden explained, while adding that she had only two children, Leslie being the younger.
Mrs Gooden describes her son as a “very helpful person” and since his passing everyone has described him as such.
“He was helpful to everybody that he could. Richard (Leslie Gooden) was so helpful that he would get up out of his bed in the late hours of the night to take a person to the hospital,” she recollected.
She said her son had been staying with a gentleman in another section of the community that had been ill. Mr Gooden would drive the gentleman to the doctor if he needed to and assisted him in other ways.
Mr Gooden was still staying there, but would not miss the opportunity to go to his mother’s for his dinner, even if he had to sneak in late at nights to avoid waking her up.
“He was just a jovial and attentive person. He would come in and if the TV isn’t working properly, he would fix it… He came and said he wanted to enlarge the house. He had a lot of plans in mind,” Mrs Gooden painfully reflected.
The last time she saw her son was the night before the crash on Tuesday night, September 12, when he came for his dinner.
“He didn’t talk much, because (he) is not a person that talks much. Richard will just give you a smile and one and two words,” she revealed.
On that dreadful Wednesday night, Mrs Gooden pointed out that no one wanted to tell her that her son had died. Everyone kept telling her to be strong, but no one would answer her questions as to what happened.
“And in the long run, it came to me. And I asked them, Richard crash and died? And one church sister shake her head… Believe you me it was like I was in a dream. It wasn’t reality,” she noted.
Other family members, including Mr Gooden’s grandmother, who gave him the name Richard, are equally devastated about the news.
“Everybody that comes along just genuinely feeling it knowing the jovial person Richard was. He was just everybody’s friend,” Mrs Gooden pointed out.
And for her, it really has not been easy coping. “It is a very hard pain to bear. A very difficult one. I think my heart is torn,” she said.
Leslie’s sister, Ann Marie Green-Berry described her brother as a jack of all trade, as he also did painting as well. She said that he had gone to HEART NTA and did carpentry, but he diverted into mechanics.
“He (Leslie) loved cars and loved fast cars. He is always at every Dover race,” she added.
She described her brother as very determined, fun to be around and jovial.
In the meantime, a source close to the investigations explained that the driver of the Honda Stream is still in the hospital. Another eyewitness statement is also to be collected in the investigations.
