Girl, 9, killed in accident

NINE-YEAR-OLD Shakeeba Alexander badly wanted a bicycle as her Christmas gift and was anxiously counting down the days to Christmas. Sadly, little Shakeeba’s dreams of riding her bicycle will never be realised after she was struck down and killed by a bakery van, while running an errand for her mother at a parlour near their home yesterday afternoon.

“I sent her to the parlour with five dollars to buy butter because she wanted me to make provisions for her to eat,” an inconsolable Leona Nicholas cried as she recounted the last moments with her daughter. Nicholas said she was in the kitchen of their Thorne Street, San Fernando home preparing the food when her mother and sister screamed out that Shakeeba had been struck by a van. Nicholas said she ran up the street and saw her daughter lying on the ground gasping for breath. “I was telling her to hold on, hold on please don’t go,” Nicholas cried.

Nicholas said her daughter’s pulse was weak while she was being conveyed to the San Fernando General Hospital. The child died while doctors were attending to her at the Accident and Emergency Department.  An eyewitness told Newsday around 3 pm, Alexander looked to the right, then left, before attempting to cross Bertrand Street, which is located near her home. “A bakery van was coming down the road at the same time and the driver tried to pull away to avoid hitting the child, but it was too late. He struck her and then crashed into a concrete wall,” the eyewitness, who asked not to be identified, stated. The eyewitness said he ran to the child, who was flung several feet into the air on impact with the van, lifted her and placed her on the side of the road. He said the child appeared to be conscious and gasping for breath.

On impact, he said, the driver struck the steering wheel of the van and was injured on his face. The driver has since been questioned by officers of the Mon Repos Police Station. At the house of mourning, relatives cried uncontrollably as they struggled to come to terms with the tragedy. “Oh God...oh God...anything you ask her to do, she’ll do it,” cried the child’s grandmother Josephine, who had to be physically supported after collapsing to the ground, screaming and crying uncontrollably. With tears streaming down her face, Leona, a CEPEP worker, recalled the last moments she spent with the youngest of her two children. “I came home around noon and Shakeeba was cleaning my toes for me. Then she asked me to make provisions for her, and said tomorrow she wanted corned beef and mashed potatoes,” Leona said.

With her other daughter, Shiba, 11, sitting next to her, Leona, who is a single parent, recalled that Shakeeba was very excited about helping her with the Christmas shopping. “When I get paid on Friday, we were going to make groceries for Christmas and I was going to buy her the bike,” she added. Nicholas said Shakeeba, a standard one pupil at Anstey Anglican School, could not write her end-of-term examinations because she was afflicted with “red eye,” but she always did well in school. San Fernando Mayor Ian Atherly, who visited the bereaved family hours after the tragedy, extended his condolences and promised to provide the family financial assistance for funeral arrangements. Also promising assistance was acting Prime Minister Joan Yuille-Williams, who was distributing purchase orders to Pleasantville residents affected by last Friday’s tornado, when she heard news of the fatal accident. The bakery van is now at the Mon Repos Police Station. An autopsy is expected to be carried out today and investigations are continuing.