A 20-year-old woman died last evening hours after she was struck down by a speeding motor car on the Annandale Public Road, on the East Coast of Demerara.
Shafana Imran of Lot 91 Annandale West, was struck as she made her way to make a purchase at the market. The driver is in police custody assisting with investigations.
Imran sustained serious injuries to the head, hip, arm and foot during the incident, which occurred just before 11 am. She was also bleeding internally and was unconscious when she was rushed into the operating theatre of the Georgetown Hospital for emergency surgery. She died around 6:30 pm, moments after being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit post-surgery.
Based on the accounts given to Stabroek News, Imran, who got married in April and moved to Annandale with her husband, was heading in an easterly direction along the roadway when a speeding car, which was heading west, slammed into her. The woman was pitched several feet on impact and landed on the roadway. Her umbrella, cell phone and slippers flew in different directions.
Residents told Stabroek News at the scene that because of the speed the car was moving at, the driver took some time to slow down before eventually coming to a stop. One resident said that she noticed a traffic build-up and when she looked out she saw a woman with her face covered in blood lying on the roadway. The woman, she said, was gasping for air and her left hand appeared to be broken. The woman, who did not want her name mentioned, said that the left side of the silver grey car was badly damaged.
Another resident, who said that he was close to Imran and her husband, Rasheed, said that moments before the accident the woman asked him to buy some things for her and she was going to collect them on her way back home. He said that he last saw the woman walking at the side of the road, heading in the direction of the Annandale market. The man noted that the woman was facing the upcoming traffic and was at a loss as to how the driver could have collided head on with her.
After he learned of the accident, he contacted her relatives.
This newspaper was told that seconds before the accident a policeman on a motor cycle passed the area. He was later alerted to the accident, returned to the scene and accompanied the driver and the motor car to the Vigilance Police Station.
The unconscious Imran, meanwhile, was rushed to hospital by police. At the hospital midday yesterday relatives were in tears.
A woman who identified herself as Imran’s mother-in-law said that someone went to her house and informed her of the accident. She said that the young woman was her parents’ only daughter and had come to live at her house, two months ago. She said that they often warned her about the busy roadway.
Imran’s distraught husband Rasheed told this newspaper at the hospital that he was at work when he got the news of the accident. He said that the doctors from the beginning told her that she was in a critical condition. They said that “she break her hands, her legs and she is bleeding internally.”
Relatives described her as a willing and contented person.
This is the second serious accident to have occurred along the Annandale road recently. On October 5, Oma Devi Persaud, who lives opposite Imran, was stuck down by a speeding car. She remains a patient in intensive care at the Georgetown Hospital.
