A 16-year-old bike rider received severe facial injuries after part of a concrete-block wall fell on her as she was riding her bike along North Shore Road yesterday.

Police Media spokesperson Dwayne Caines said the cycle driver was travelling west around 11 a.m. when the wall adjacent to the Dub City variety store, near Bailey?s Bay, Hamilton Parish, fell onto the road in her path and knocked her off her cycle.

She suffered serious facial injuries and abrasions as a result.

Mr. Caines said a Bob Cat working in the yard of a private house above the wall was thought to have loosened the structure.

Marie Lee, who was driving a car immediately behind the bike rider and narrowly avoided injury by swerving her car out of the way, said she saw the wall come tumbling down.

She said she got out to help the bike rider, who had been knocked unconscious by the bricks.

A nursing supervisor at the KingEdward VIIMemorial Hospital told yesterday the injured rider was in stable condition.

After the accident, an email circulated around various Island offices, saying the girl was falling in and out of consciousness and had sustained a fractured skull, blood clot in her head and shattered bones in her cheek area.

The writer asked the public to pray for the victim.

Police closed the road as far back as the Esso Tiger Mart at Crawl Hill yesterday and more than two Police cars and five officers were called out to manage traffic, which was backed up for more than half an hour along North Shore Road.

The home owner whose property borders the wall said Government was responsible for maintaining the structure.

The Health and Safety Department is investigating the incident.

Officials at the department said they were not in a position to issue comment.

Works and Engineering consultant Pete Havlicek said, however, that the upper wall, thought to be responsible for bringing down a portion of the wall located at street level, was Government owned.