Coffee run saves Skeete

Call it Divine intervention, or a sixth sense, but 70-year-old Westmoreland resident, Eaton Skeete, left his living room just in time to narrowly escape serious injury or even death when a tractor-trailer carrying an excavator crashed into the front door of his home early this morning.

Eaton Skeete in his living room.

Skeete told Barbados TODAY, “I got up at 4:30 this morning and was watching television, when I heard a commotion outside. At first I thought it was the garbage truck, since they usually come around on Monday mornings, but when I looked outside I saw this tractor-trailer parked on the lot next to my house. It seemed as though it had broken down. I saw two men heading towards it, plus the escort truck was parked on the other side of the road flashing its lights. I went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and while I was there I heard a crashing sound. When I came back to the living room I saw the truck had crashed through my front door.”

Apart from the damage to the front door, the boards surrounding it and some of his personal effects, Skeete, a retired Government worker, said the impact had also pushed his uninsured home, where he has lived for the last 33 years, off its foundation.

The truck was unoccupied at the time of the accident, and when Barbados TODAY visited the scene , a crew from Black Bess Quarries, the owner of the vehicle, was moving it from the crash site. Skeete said he had spoken to the company’s representatives and they had agreed to compensate him for the damage to his property.

Efforts to reach Black Bess Quarries officials were unsuccessful.