A six-year-old boy died on the spot after he was struck down by a minibus on Mandela Avenue in the vicinity of the Plaza Bridge yesterday around 6:30pm.
Dead is East Ruimveldt Primary School student, Kellon Europe, of Lot 604 East Ruimveldt, who was at the time in the company of his 9-year-old sister. The two were reportedly going to the shop.
When Stabroek News arrived at the Georgetown Public Hospital, the driver of the Route 72, Mahdia bus, was being questioned by the officer in charge of the hospital’s police outpost as his young daughter, who was the only other occupant in the vehicle at the time of the accident, cried uncontrollably.
This newspaper spoke with the mother of the dead child, Odessa Glasglow, who said that she received the news from her older son who was on the road as well.
“My son came home and tell me that me son get knock down and when I went out on the back road I see they now lifting he up and putting he in the same bus that knock he down,” the woman said.
A family friend told this newspaper that he was inside the shop when he heard the loud crash but from the screams he heard, he got the impression that it was a man who had been knocked down. “All I hear is blam and them man holler a man get knock down but is when I come out I see is this lil boy,” he said.
Other eyewitnesses told this newspaper that the child was dragged a short distance before the speeding bus came to a halt.
“He come on the inside lane to jump the light and when he jump it that’s when he hit him…”
Another man added that the driver of the vehicle attempted to lift the child into the vehicle but was stopped by onlookers who took control of the situation, with one man opting to drive the bus to the hospital. “They put the driver fuh sit in the bus and they drive the bus because the man de look (incapacitated),” he added.
Glasgow said that she joined them in the bus and rushed her child to the hospital who from all appearances, had already died. The hospital staff, it was noted, tried desperately to revive the lad.
“First of all, when I came with him, because is an emergency they run with him straight in and they start giving him oxygen and I saw his eyes were open and they start putting different machines on his heart to see if it pumping,” she recalled.
Shortly after, the woman continued, someone came outside and delivered the news that her son was pronounced dead. “I couldn’t believe it. When I go in back I see they tek off everything off of him and he was dead indeed,” she said.
She maintained that the driver was under the influence of alcohol. “He was drunk because when I was in the police outpost there, the driver was sitting right there and I can smell the alcohol,” she noted. “And he telling me he want a word with me? What word he can want with me? My son dead already,” she lamented.
