An Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) employee of 37 years is still shaken up, days after a vehicle crashed into his work bus along the Sir George Walter Highway.
Lester “Flash” Benjamin was slicing a fibre ring to re-enforce the work for the completion of Inet’s island wide fibre network, the very event at which he was interviewed on Thursday night.
He told Island Press Box that they were completing their last trays when his coworker, Clement Noel ordered him to run. “He heard the rev of the engine; I didn’t even hear it. He said Flash, run!” Mr. Benjamin remembered.
By the time he looked towards his coworker, Mr. Benjamin recalled that the vehicle was already near the door of the work bus.
But it was not until surveillance video of the incident went viral that he realized how close he was to dying that Tuesday afternoon.
“The video went viral before I saw it, so when I saw it, I feel me pressure go up likkle,” he said, wide-eyed.
The father of two adult girls said he has had several close calls while working for nearly four decades at APUA, but none had scared him quite like this.
None-the-less he remarked that “God id good,” desiring his feeling as “shaken inside but calm outside”.
“I’m a Christian. I really do not fear, fear but you’re human so you experience the height of the emotion, “he said, explaining that it was fear, anger, stress and anxiety occurring simultaneously.
That feeling was compounded by the many people trying to ensure that he was okay.
“There were so many people asking if you’re alright son you begin to get nervous … I don’t think about it much [and] I don’t watch the video,” he told our newsroom.
English