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However, her hopes were dashed after her parents were informed that she will be hospitalised for an extended period, due to the severity of injuries on her head, after a dog attacked her last Sunday, at Number 2 Village, East Canje. But education officials said Phillips will be assessed and placed into a secondary school.
The pre-teen, who has received in excess of ten sutures to the roof of her cranium, which has since been heavily bandaged, was resting when this reporter visited the Paediatric Surgical Ward at the New Amsterdam Hospital on Wednesday.
Her mother, Theresa Persaud, who was at her bedside, related that, after returning home on Sunday, shortly after 17:30 hrs, she sent the eldest of her four children to make a purchase at a neighbourhood shop.
Minutes after, the child returned, saying that the business premises were closed.
There is another shop in the area and, at the girl’s suggestion, she sent her there although she was not mindful of doing so but was persuaded by the child saying:”Mommy, you and Daddy got to have something to eat.”
Came running
“I allowed her to go but shortly after, Ryan a sixteen-year-old boy who lives in the neighbourhood came running and said ‘Aunty Girlie, Auntie Girlie, come see a dog bite Amanda’,” Persaud recounted.
She said she and her husband hurried to the location, about ten houses away, where her daughter was in a stooping position on the grass parapet.
The neighbours had wrapped her with a sheet after they had rescued her from the dog which was lying on the roadway, having been fatally chopped.
Someone called a taxi which took the woman and her daughter to New Amsterdam Hospital.
Persaud said she never saw the dog whenever she passed the area but was informed, by neighbours, that it would jump over the low fence and attack persons and, despite complaints, the owner did nothing about it.
But, on Sunday night, when they were at the Accident and Emergency Department of the hospital, the dog’s owner arrived and asked whether he could see the injured girl and the mother told him it was okay but the police came, arrested him and took him to the Central Police Station.
Station bail
Persaud said the owner of the animal was placed on station bail and he returned to the hospital on Monday but did not offer her anything although he kept saying that nobody should have killed his dog.
The woman said she told the doctor that her daughter had been saved by the boy, which was more important, because if the dog had its way the girl might have been killed.
“I am grateful to Clem (only name given) for saving my child’s life,” Persaud said.
She said she later learnt that her daughter was attacked from behind after the dog jumped on her back and almost ripped off the top of her cranium.
As a result, the injured girl would have to undergo antibiotic treatment before being released from the hospital.
The thirty-five-year-old Persaud, who is a domestic servant, said she is unable to work as she needs to make regular visits to the health institution.
