WESTERN BUREAU:

A maintenance worker had his leg amputated in a freak accident at the Sangster Interna-tional Airport in Montego Bay, St. James, yesterday afternoon, when the aircraft he was working on fell on him.

The injured man has been identified as 34-year-old Timair mechanic, Andrew 'Buju' Jackson, of a Kingston address.

According to information reaching The Gleaner, the incident occurred sometime after 3:00 p.m. at the domestic terminal, while Mr. Jackson was in the process of changing a tyre on an American-registered Piper Navajo, N63717, private plane.

It is understood that the aircraft is not operated by his employer.

"I don't know the extent of the injuries. One part of the leg was amputated and he received injuries to one hand, but I understand that it was severe," said an airport worker.

The inefficiency of the health service was also exposed in the tragedy, as it reportedly took almost one hour before an ambulance arrived at the scene.

"Immediately after the accident, calls were made to MoBay Hope and it took them 50 minutes to get here and they kept telling us that it (the ambulance) would be here soon as they had another patient to drop off at the airport," a highly-placed source at Timair stated.

But administrator at MoBay Hope, Judith Farmer, said the private health facility does not own an ambulance.

"We have a private concession from Ambucare, they are actually on site most of the time," Mrs. Farmer explained. "We use them quite a lot for airlift and transportation of patients - they have a very good reputation."