Seven-year old Joseph Quallis of 205 Middle Road La Penitence, who was rammed and pinned against a concrete and steel fence by a speeding car on Thursday afternoon, died while under emergency medical care at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) around 09:00 hours the same night.

The child, who was badly disfigured and whose organs were badly damaged, was said to have been clinically brain dead and was placed on a ventilator on arrival at the hospital. His deeply distraught mother recalled that his

left leg was broken; his pelvic area was smashed, and he suffered injuries to his brain.
On arrival at the hospital doctors immediately got to work and waged an unrelenting battle to save the child’s life but he succumbed later that night.
The bereaved father, Andre Quallis said the accident happened about 15:30 hrs and recalled that his son Joseph, who was a pupil of St. Pius Primary School, had just returned home from school, changed his clothes, and set out for a nearby shop to buy pholourie.

He said soon after the child had left home, he heard a car speeding through the street. “It was going at such a rate that I tell mesself that I hope he don’t knock down meh child.” But seconds later, the father said he heard a loud impact and ran outside to see what had happened. His wife who was ahead of him said the driver had knocked down somebody. But little did they know it was their child, Joseph, who had left the house minutes earlier.
On arriving at the scene of the accident they found out it was Joseph and became hysterical and inconsolable. As word circulated, a crowd, comprised of mainly wailing mothers, rapidly built up.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses said that the child heard and saw the speeding car, and ran off of the road and onto a neighbour’s bridge in order to be out of harm’s way. But misfortune struck, and the car crashed into the stump of a downed electricity pole, split it into pieces and then ploughed into Joseph who was on the concrete bridge. On impact, neighbours said the child was flung onto the front windscreen of the car. As the car crashed into the concrete and steel wall, Joseph’s head was pinned between the designed grill work and a huge concrete column. It took determined and selfless effort to get him out.
The woman, into whose fence the car careened, said that on impact the concrete column was dislodged and it pinned the car down, making it difficult for it to be removed.
Meanwhile, public spirited neighbours did all in their power to extract the child who was also trapped between the car and the fence. Once removed the child was rushed to hospital.
Joseph’s cousin, Cherry Anne Richards, related that another child of similar age, who said that earlier the same car had almost hit him near St. Pius School, saw when the

car crashed into the fence. But not realising that another child was hit, he impulsively shouted out: “It good fuh he!” Meaning the driver, whom he thought had crashed alone. It was only on getting closer that the little boy realised that one of his schoolmates had been struck down and badly injured.
It was an agonising scene. One woman who was just going into her bathroom, rushed out with a towel around her to render assistance. Family members of the injured child became hysterical and inconsolable and hurried down to the hospital behind the injured child.
The driver of the vehicle was taken into police custody. But pathetically, residents said, when telephoned by the driver of the car its owner arrived on the scene, paid the child’s father and other relatives no mind, and proceeded to remove the number plate from the rear of the vehicle and secured other items he considered valuable. The front number plate had already been folded up as the car crashed into the fence.
One woman recalled that she was in a room upstairs in her home when she heard a car passing through the streets at a terrific speed. “I raced to the window to see what was going on, but the next thing I heard was a horrible crash. Then I heard people saying that a child had been rammed into the shattered concrete fence.”
Little Joseph who is the third of four children to his parents, Shelley Ann Hutson and Andre Quallis, turned seven last Sunday and the family was looking forward to having a joint celebration for him and his father on Father’s Day, this Sunday.