A six-year-old was struck and killed by a speeding car on the Westminster Road, at La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, as he was making his way to school early yesterday morning.
Keith Adams, who succumbed before he could receive treatment at the West Demerara Regional Hospital, was the latest person killed on the country’s roads even as National Road Safety Month is being observed.
Police said the accident occurred around 6.45 am, when the driver of PRR 9325 was proceeding along the roadway at a fast rate, lost control of the vehicle and hit Adams.
The driver is in police custody.
When Stabroek News visited scene of the accident yesterday, the car was seen resting in a drain, partially under the bridge of a nearby pharmacy.
Adams, a Grade One student of La Parfaite Harmonie Primary School was making his way to school in the company of his neighbour and her two daughters, as he did every day.
According to the neighbour, Alicia (only name given), she, along with Adams and her two daughters left as they would usually do every day. “I was on the left-hand side and my two daughters and he (Adams) were on the right hand side in the grass. The car swerve out from the left hand side and go into the right hand side and picked up Keith from behind and pitched him up. When he land, he [the driver] turn out in the same direction and ran over his body,” the woman said in between sobs.
She said Adams was still breathing when public-spirited persons picked him up and placed him in a car destined for the West Demerara Hospital. However, Adams died before receiving medical attention.
“Ow, it could’ve been all four of us because he came on the left first but then he swerved out on the right. Ow, he speed, too much speed, it was too much for him to take control of the vehicle, it was too much,” Alicia lamented. The woman further related that from her observations, none of the occupants of the car received any visible injuries. “I ’in see no cut, I ’in see no laceration, I ’in see no blood. Ow, no parents, no guardian, no neighbour, should have to witness something like that,” she added.
Alicia described Adams as “a beautiful child” and noted that anybody would want to have him as a son. “Keith was obedient… Every Sunday, he would come over and read with my daughter in the afternoon… Wah ah gon do Sundays now? What am I going to do when he doesn’t come over?” she said.
Meanwhile, across the road from Alicia’s house, family and friends of the little boy were overcome with grief and tears flowed continuously as details of the incident were related.
Speaking with this newspaper, Culley Caesar, the boy’s guardian at the time, explained that Adams and his older brother, Tyrese, had been staying with her at her Lot 4241 Westminster home since August of this year.
She related that they were originally from Wismar, Linden, however, they were living with her as they awaited the completion of an adoption process.
Caesar explained that it was customary for her neighbour to take the boy to school as Keith was in the same class as one of the neighbour’s daughters.
Meanwhile, the boy’s biological mother, Althea Adams, was lost for words. She related that she travelled from Linden after she received a call about the incident. The woman said the boy’s father had died four years ago and she wanted her son to have a better life, which she could not give him. As a result, she had moved to have him adopted by her aunt. She said he was the third of her six children and described him as very honest and willing.
Keith was described as a very pleasant child who had a smile that would always “get him out of any trouble he would make,” by family and friends.
Meanwhile, residents gathered at the scene of the incident and voiced their anger at the lack of consideration shown by drivers who use the road. One resident related that drivers habitually sped along the narrow road without consideration for the countless school children who make their daily journey to school in the morning. “He was speeding and he knock down the lil boy. Is a lil baby he kill budday,” one resident said.
