Nine-year-old girl still fighting for her life after road accident

by Katherine Renton

A nine-year-old pupil of the Kingstown Government School who suffered a brain injury after being struck by a vehicle on the Campden Park public road is still “fighting for her life”.

Gabriel Jack’s mother, Sigalyn ‘Siga’ Jack spoke to SEARCHLIGHT about her daughter’s condition on Wednesday, nearly a week after the accident occurred on Thursday, August 13.

“I know she still fighting for she life, but I still can’t believe that is her. I just have to hold the faith,” the mother of six children stated.

Sigalyn, who has been living in Campden Park for three years, said that she was at work on the day of the accident.

“…Before I leave home I told them no one come out because I prepare everything there for them.

I make sure leave them breakfast and they lunch, so they ain ha no need to go outside, just watch TV…play,” she explained.

However, her daughter was sent to buy bread by another relative.

Security camera footage of the accident shows that the young girl had just alighted a minibus, and had run behind it to align herself with the entrance of the Allan Smith Family Bakery. The minibus pulls away as the girl speedily crosses the road. In the middle of crossing, she is hit by a blue Toyota car with the number plate P7818 owned and driven by Romano Richards of Campden Park. The hit takes her out of the frame of the camera and the video ends.

Sigalyn revealed, “To be honest I can’t watch the accident. My daughter get knock down like a dog, she don’t deserve this.” “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” the child’s uncle stated as she said this.

After the accident happened that morning, the mother explained, “…my sister called me and tell me my daughter just get knock down. First thing I ask, if she die, she said no, and then I break down and say no my daughter don’t deserve this.”

When the mother was taken to the scene of the accident, the driver of the Toyota car “show me in front of the mirror it get shattered,” she recalled.

“She (Gabriel) accustomed to go in the van and buy bread, just the same how she coming out, she accustom, so…it is just happen so sad and sudden,” she commented, noting that the van that she alighted from took her to the hospital afterwards. With bruises, chest and brain injuries.

Gabriel has been at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) since.

“…No improvement yet with the brain, but the body and so on there are improvements. She moving, she breathing on her own now,” Sigalyn, who goes to the hospital every day, noted. Up to the time of the interview Gabriel had not spoken, and was being fed through a tube.

“The doctor tell me that her brain mashed up,” and is swollen, the mother said.

“…Any how we get this injury in her brain cure, she is good.”

Sigalyn says that when she speaks to Gabriel her daughter moves her body, and that she believes Gabriel knows it’s her mother talking to her.

“I can’t work because when I work, I’m not getting the strength, my mind just dey pon me daughter and the condition she dey right now, I can’t work. So I’m out of a job right now,” the sad, and broken down mother reveals.

“My children never get hurt because I always taken care of my kids. But it’s really shocking to me, I still can’t believe.”