JAMAICA: PJ Patterson hospitalised after accident

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Jamaica, PJ Pat­ter­son, re­mains in hos­pi­tal this morn­ing fol­low­ing a se­ri­ous mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dent at his Up­per St. An­drew home last evening.

Pat­ter­son is con­scious and es­caped ma­jor in­jury to his up­per body.

How­ev­er, the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter re­port­ed­ly suf­fered se­ri­ous in­jury to his hip and knee.

It’s un­der­stood that doc­tors are con­sid­er­ing whether to per­form surgery on Mr. Pat­ter­son in the com­ing hours.

Na­tion­wide dis­closed last evening that Mr. Pat­ter­son was rushed to the Tony Thwait­es Wing of the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal of the West In­dies, UH­WI, fol­low­ing a mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dent.

The ac­ci­dent hap­pened at about 7:45 last evening.

It’s un­der­stood that the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter, who’s 84 years old, lost con­trol of a mo­tor ve­hi­cle he was dri­ving and crashed in­to his gate.

In a state­ment last night, one of Pat­ter­son’s friends, Al­ston Stew­art, said the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter was un­der­go­ing a com­plete med­ical eval­u­a­tion at the UH­WI.

Mr. Stew­art con­firmed that the ac­ci­dent re­sult­ed in Pat­ter­son hav­ing to be tak­en to hos­pi­tal.

Up to late last night, the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter was still un­der­go­ing eval­u­a­tion.

Mr. Stew­art not­ed that Mr. Pat­ter­son is con­scious and sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends.

Stew­art promised more in­for­ma­tion when a full med­ical as­sess­ment is done on Mr. Pat­ter­son.

PJ Pat­ter­son is one of the Caribbean’s most em­i­nent ju­rists.

He is Ja­maica’s longest serv­ing Prime Min­is­ter, hav­ing served be­tween 1992 and 2005.