Two daughters are motherless today, and the older is trying to figure out how to break the news to her younger sister.
Their 31-year-old mother, Amanda Danielle Byer, died in a road accident in the early hours of yesterday.
Byer, the owner of Nails Supplies by Stylish Apparel, located in Sky Mall, Haggatt Hall, St Michael, and who lived at Coral Land, also in Haggatt Hall, lost her life around 4:45 a.m. when the car she was driving struck an embankment and crashed into a coral limestone guard wall at the Israel Lovell Foundation on My Lord’s Hill, St Michael.
She received head injuries and succumbed to them on the spot.
Her passenger, Jeffrey Callender, 50, of the same address, received an injury to the forehead and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by ambulance.
Yesterday at Byer’s mother’s home in Welches Road, St Michael, family members were still trying to come to grips with the tragedy.
Byer’s daughter, Takiya, a fourth form student at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School, was holding her two-year-old baby sister, Emery, in her arms and crying uncontrollably.
With tears coursing down her face, the older girl expressed concern for the well-being of her little sister.
“She is going to keep asking me about her mother,” Takiya said through tears.
Byer’s mother was too distraught to speak but recalled that the last time she saw her daughter alive was Saturday night when she brought her two daughters to stay with her before leaving for the 2017 Hennessy Artistry Show at Kensington Oval.
Aunt Sheldene Byer described her niece as a “nice girl”.
“She would give anybody anything they asked for. I love Amanda. She loved life. She loved all of her family,” she said.
Two other aunts – Margo and Sherlann Byer – who were also present, echoed those sentiments, describing her as a very nice person to her family.
Meanwhile, Michael James, Takiya’s father, turned up at the house to offer some comfort to his daughter.
Yesterday, in the wake of the fatality, residents of the area expressed concern about what they called the dangerous corner of My Lord’s Hill, saying they feared more accidents would occur unless something was done about the area.
Byer was the 27th person to die on the roads this year. (NC/HLE)
