THE motorcyclist who struck and killed three-year-old Saleena Shakieal in front of her 180 Sixth Street, Windsor Forest, West Coast Demerara home, last Friday, is still in police custody. The toddler was laid to rest on Tuesday after a funeral service at her parents’ residence.
The motorcycle driver had turned himself in a day after the fatal accident, accompanied by a lawyer after he had fled the scene, on Friday, leaving behind the machine which is also now at the police station.
The child’s mother, Yashwantie Kallap, 29, told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that a post-mortem performed on Monday revealed that her daughter succumbed to multiple injuries, including several broken body parts and severe internal damage.
Detailing her experience, the woman said, about 17:30 hrs on Friday, she and Sheena were standing behind a parked truck that sells groceries when the speeding, out-of-control motorcycle crashed into them.
She said the impact hurled the child under the canter vehicle and she, herself, almost fell. When she pulled the girl out, the latter was unconscious and unresponsive and bleeding from several parts of her body.
She rushed the injured girl to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where she died sometime after, even as doctors tried desperately to save her.
Kallap said after they had been struck, the driver asked her “how many people died” and got up and walked away from the scene, leaving his motorcycle.
The woman said the man, who is no stranger to them as his mother lives a few houses from theirs in the same street, was highly intoxicated.
Kallap said when they were struck; she was making a purchase of potatoes that she abandoned on the roadway.
The mother of three said she suffered injuries, too, but was treated also at the hospital and sent away.