Easington Bridge horror - Family mourns Raphael Bryan after bizarre fatal fall

The Bryan family of Woodbourne, St Thomas, is struggling to come to terms with the shocking death of their 90-year-old patriarch, Raphael Bryan, whose life ended due to an unexpectedly bizarre and tragic incident.

Known for a strength that belied his age, Bryan had long been the family's pillar, a man they expected to live well into his 100s.

The patriarch's routine ended in tragedy on Good Friday, April 3. Bryan had crossed the one-lane Easington Bridge, a structure already notorious for damage from Hurricane Melissa, when the ground beneath him unexpectedly gave way. He fell through a hole that opened up on the approach to the bridge and dropped several feet onto rocks below in the riverbed.

"To see him go down like this, it's wicked," his son Isaac said, his voice cracking with grief. "It is a wicked death him get, enuh... . Him get a hot death at this age."

Only months before, in October, another man fell from the bridge onto the rocks below. Miraculously, he survived.

The bridge, which residents have long believed was in need of attention, became impassable to vehicular traffic after a section collapsed during Hurricane Melissa. The authorities responded to the hazard by heaping mounds of sand at both entrances. But residents say the bridge could still be accessed, and Bryan, like many others in the area, used it daily.

For Suszett Bryan, Good Friday brought anything but solace. Her father left home that morning, around 6, and told her, 'Mi soon come.' He never came back.

"Him say when him come back he's going to buy a credit and call my other sister who deh a foreign ... she don't know what he had to tell her because him don't come back," she said, her voice drowning with emotions.

Despite his advanced age, Bryan's independence remained unwavering. Each day, he diligently tended his coal kiln, producing charcoal -- a trade that had sustained the family for decades.

"No matter if you did give him a million dollar, he wouldn't stay home," his granddaughter Shakera Bryan said. "He always says he is going to take care of us, even as adults."

But it was that very independence that led to a death the family describes as both bizarre and preventable. Isaac recounted seeing his father walking to the shop that morning.

"The morning of the incident he crossed the bridge. He know that the hole is there. He went to shop and come back, and the hole caved in. I don't know what went wrong, [but] he fell in there," Isaac said, as his sister wept on his shoulder.

Bryan's yard, once filled with his laughter, now carries the weight of disbelief and grief. Suszett pointed to bags of coal delivered after his death, the unfinished work a haunting reminder of her grandfather's tenacity.

"He was a good father," she said. "Him try him best. A coal him a burn from ever since -- from mi born, but him nuh short a nothing. Him have him kids them, and we tell him he can stop, he doesn't need to. Him just want to be independent because we take care of him," she said.

"Him clothes wash, him get him food, but him just want to do him fi him thing," she said, cracking a smile as she explained that no one could get her father to stop working.

But her smile was brief as tears filled her eyes while she scanned the yard her father once walked freely. After a pause, her voice soft and breaking, she reflected on one of their final moments together on Thursday afternoon, pointing to a stone where he would often sit.

"Thursday him come and say, 'Fay, beg you some water, some cold cold water,' and sit down pon the stone and me give him. Then him say, 'You have bread?' and me give him two slices," she said, tears rushing from her eyes.

Sitting on a tree in the yard, Isaac provided a literal shoulder for his grieving sister. A local taxi operator, he recalled seeing his father between 8 and 9 a.m., walking towards the shop--not just for errands, but to socialise with friends.

"I saw him on the road and I slow down and say, 'It look like you get money from your kids abroad. How you trash so?'

"Him seh he is going to buy a bun and cheese at the shop. He has a bond with them," Isaac said.

It was the last time he saw his father alive.

While still on the road, he received a call that someone had fallen into the hole, and from the description, Isaac said he knew it was his father.

Although he noted that his father was always well-dressed, Isaac said, "Him dress up extra that day. Him clean! It is like something was going to go wrong. It was like his last day, to how him overdress."

As the Bryan family and residents who rely on the Easington Bridge reel from the tragedy, many are left questioning what more could have been done to prevent it.

Easington Bridge, which spans the Yallahs River, links communities such as Heartease and Norris with areas to the north, including Easington and Llandewey, and Woodbourne to the south. With its collapse, commuters are now forced to choose between navigating a makeshift pathway through the river just a short distance away or taking a lengthy detour via Albion to go about their daily business.

Residents say the measures put in place by the National Works Agency, the entity responsible for the structure, remain inadequate for those accustomed to using the bridge daily.

"They throw a bit of sand there when the first incident happened, but it wasn't much," Iassc said.

He insisted, too, that an alternative route that cuts through the Yallahs River is not ideal for pedestrians.

"It is so hard for the people in the community to walk through the riverbed or go around Albion, I walk there as well, and it's dangerous as well; the long road is terrible, so nobody naa go walk there," Isaac explained.

Although foot traffic on the bridge was still possible, he noted that since his father's death, more sand had been dumped to block the hole, making the crossing even more difficult. He, however, thinks more should be done.

"They can weld up the bridge [so] that nobody can really walk across, because people can still walk across the sand heap," he said.