STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Shock and hor­ror greet­ed To­ba­go fire­fight­ers ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing as they re­spond­ed to a fa­tal crash in Bon Ac­cord in­volv­ing one of their own.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Crown Point fire of­fi­cer Jerome Jack was rid­ing his black Hon­da mo­tor­bike east­bound along Mil­ford Road, around 2.10 am, when he col­lid­ed with a black Sub­aru Lega­cy head­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion. The im­pact sent Jack fly­ing me­tres from his man­gled bike while the Sub­aru, dri­ven by Willaim Snell, crashed in­to the near­by NAT­CO sign out­side the es­tab­lish­ment.

Of­fi­cers from the Scar­bor­ough fire sta­tion, where Jack was pre­vi­ous­ly sta­tioned, ar­rived first and found their col­league ly­ing on the ground, still wear­ing his hel­met.

It was on­ly af­ter an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card was re­trieved from the body that the tragedy hit home.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Thomp­son ar­rived at the scene and pro­nounced Jack dead, and or­dered the body’s re­moval to the Scar­bor­ough mor­tu­ary.

At the Crown Point Fire Sta­tion yes­ter­day, the mood was sad and som­bre, ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cer who wished not to be iden­ti­fied.

He said of­fi­cers, es­pe­cial­ly those who re­spond­ed to the in­ci­dent, re­main shak­en, and a coun­selling ses­sion was held yes­ter­day morn­ing.

He said Jack would have been on du­ty with his col­leagues last night, but was on com­pen­sato­ry leave.

Asked to de­scribe his for­mer col­league, he said, “Jack was qui­et, re­served, but very friend­ly. He was well-liked and a true team play­er. He al­ways looked out for his fel­low of­fi­cers.”

He said Jack joined the ser­vice on Jan­u­ary 24, 2008 and quick­ly es­tab­lished him­self as a “mod­el fire­man.”

Di­vi­sion Fire Of­fi­cer Garth Ja­cob said there is “pro­found sor­row” with­in the ser­vice when he was in­formed of the in­ci­dent.

“When they called me this morn­ing, the of­fi­cer, I had to give him time to con­tain him­self be­cause he was re­al­ly cry­ing...,” he said.

Ja­cob said there is a mis­con­cep­tion that emer­gency re­spon­ders are numb to the tragedies they re­spond to.

“Peo­ple think we are a cool oc­cu­pa­tion, but the mood would be dif­fer­ent when you re­alise what you are re­spond­ing to is one of your own who has died.”

He said the loss feels per­son­al for him as well be­cause Jack was born not too far from his res­i­dence.

“He was a gen­tle­man, he was a re­al­ly good work­er,” he said.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary Alum­ni ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Jack’s rel­a­tives.

“Fire­fight­er Jack served with ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment, his loss is deeply felt by all who had the priv­i­lege of know­ing and work­ing along­side him. His con­tri­bu­tion and ser­vice will be re­mem­bered with re­spect and grat­i­tude.”