In a bid to keep alive the memory of late firefighter Lorenzo Garnet Douse, the Government will be renaming the Ocho Rios Fire Station in St. Ann to the Ocho Rios Fire Lorenzo Garnet Douse Memorial Building.
Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Desmond McKenzie, said he has already tasked the St. Ann Municipal Corporation to work on the necessary resolution to bring this arrangement to fruition.
“This is our contribution to the preservation of his name,” said McKenzie who attended the funeral
service of the 25-year-old deceased at Moneague College in St. Ann on Saturday, January 28.
Additionally, McKenzie indicated that there will soon be the establishment of a Lorenzo Garnet Douse Scholarship Fund to assist young firefighters between the ages of 18 to 25 to advance in their training in the Jamaica Fire Brigade.
“Lorenzo was working on that day, just completed his assignment. That is why I will not stop preaching the gospel of personal responsibility that we need badly as a country,” stated the Minister.
“The level of indiscipline on our road continues to be a major concern to all Jamaicans. Let us use the death of a young man to say to ourselves that life is precious. This is a man who could have gone on to be the next commissioner of the Jamaica Fire Brigade but now we will never know,” he added.
Subsecquently to the funeral service, Douse’s body was interred at the Moneague Cemetery as family and friends said farewell.
On November 30, 2022, Douse was on duty when he was struck by motor vehicle that overtook a line of traffic and crashed into the back of a fire truck that was parked at the side of the road, pinning him.
Alan Lewin
