Ishmarley Clarke Had Plans to Help His Family in Life

As we reported in last night’s newscast, a man lost his life in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday as he was driving up the Philip Goldson highway near mile one. The police department has not yet released any information on the accident, but we understand that Clarke was driving up the highway when a van that tried to overtake him knocked him down sometime around two in the afternoon. News Five’s Marion Ali has the story in this report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

An auditor lost his life in a motorcycle accident in Belize City on Wednesday afternoon. It happened at the entrance of the Philip Goldson Highway, almost in front of A and R Store, and claimed the life of Ishmarley Clarke. News Five met his brother, Fisean Clarke at the scene of the accident. He told us that he had just spoken to Ishmarley a couple days prior to the unfortunate accident and then tried again to reach him about an hour before he died.

 

Fisean Clarke, Brother of deceased

“I spoke to him on the phone about 2,3 days before this incident, asking him if I could stay at his house. Because I wanted to move from Orange Walk back to Belize [City]. I never did get an answer. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it again. I just, I will try my best to be for my brother and mi niece and nephew them. I got one more brother and niece and nephew right deh soh, so I have to try my best you know. I have to try my best. I neva know this mi wa happen and I di try call ah from one o’clock yesterday afternoon, yeah and he never answer his phone. I suppose to ketch the bus and come to Belize [City] yesterday. I didn’t know all this was going to take place, mein.”

 

Clarke did not die at the scene. A security guard who works near the location where the accident happened told us off-camera that immediately after the accident, Clarke appeared to be motionless, but then he sat up before the ambulance took him to the hospital.

 

Voice of: Witness

“I mi deh right ya da work, so I mi just gone tek a lee patrol and I just hear something gone Bang!  I never conscious da wa accident. I mi see lotta students right deh and I see a student and I ask what happened and they say it’s an accident. I come and I see the bally motionless on the ground. A lee bit afterwards, like before when the ambulance reached the individual get up, he get up and he sit down and watch his foot.”

 

Marion Ali

“As in stand up?”

 

Voice of Witness:

“No, he only sit down right there. He sit down and then when he see ih foot, it’s really bad injury. And then they told him not to move, but then he was touching his foot that bruk, he was touching it.  And they told him, don’t move ’cause the ambulance is coming right ahead. And then how it’s a lot of traffic, the ambulance couldn’t get a break to pass. Then finally the ambulance came and then they managed to assist him.”

 

Marion Ali

“So he was still sitting up when they took him?”

 

Voice of: Witness

“Yeah, the ambulance, when the ambulance reach he was sitting down and he lay down back again.”

 

Clarke suffered a badly broken right leg and a gash on his head. His death is a lesson, his brother told us, and a reminder of how fragile life is. Ishmarley, he said, had plans to help his siblings.

 

Fisean Clarke

“His plan was to get a – get some more land for the family that we don’t need to go through a whole heap of problems in the future, assist the family with land and stuff like the properties and things that we need to achieve. Fi this happen to he and my family, I hope everybody could see that ih nuh  impossible, ih nuh impossible, ih nuh impossible.”

 

Marion Ali for News Five.