(Trinidad Guardian) Even with her little body wrapped in bandages after suffering second-degree burns when she fell into a pot of boiling lentil peas, little Shazade Simon tried to console her worried relatives.
“Allyuh come back later, don’t cry,” the three-year-old Shazade could be heard saying in a video recording which has been shared on social media.
At the time, the child was sitting up on a bed at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital.
Unfortunately, Shazade died at the hospital on Monday, six days after the incident, leaving relatives shocked and heartbroken.
Shazade was accustomed to going to her grandfather’s vegetable and market shed at Morne Roche Road, Williamsville.
When her mother, Andelle Lazar, took her to the stall last Wednesday, a pot of lentil peas was being cooked on a firecracker on the ground at the back of the shed.
In an interview at the stall yesterday, Shazade’s aunt Marisa Brizan defended the family, saying the child was not left unsupervised.
She said there were several people in the shed and as soon as it happened, someone picked Shazade up, wrapped her in a damp towel and she was taken to the hospital.
Brizan said they believe her niece accidentally stumbled and fell into the pot.
“It is not like she was unsupervised. It had people here who were watching her. I came to go down the road and she was sitting on a chair. She was not just running around,” Brizan said.
According to the police report, Brizan’s mother had gone to the washroom when the accident occurred.
“She is always here (at the shed). She is accustomed, so she knows very well you don’t go there, but her mother was there, apparently she was going to meet her mother and she stumble,” she said.
Shazade’s death came a day after five-year-old D’amari Jeffrey drowned at the Fun Splash Water Park in Debe, prompting public criticism of the child’s mother and more public debate on whether parents are paying due care and attention to their children.