Seventeen-year-old Shaquana Hills had dreams of becoming a surgeon. But her life was cut short on Monday afternoon when she was knocked down and killed by a car while walking along a pavement not too far from her Fyzabad home.
Shaquana had just left a pharmacy when she was struck from behind and thrown a reported 50 feet into the bushes along the main road in Pepper Village on Monday.
Her relatives rushed her to the San Fernando General Hospital but the Form Five student of Siparia East Secondary succumbed to her injuries.
The tragic death of the teen comes days after a four-year-old boy was killed in a horrific dog attack in Tacarigua.
According to a police report around 5.30 pm, a 22-year-old man of Fyzabad, driving a Nissan Sylphy reportedly lost control on an incline along the main road near Maharaj Trace. The car swerved off the main road and slammed into Shaquana who was walking along the pavement in the same direction. An eyewitness said Shaquana’s body was thrown about 50 feet into the bushes on the side of the pavement.
The driver stopped a short distance away.
Speaking at their Richardson Trace, Pepper Village, home yesterday, Shaquana’s mother Adaffi Hills said her daughter left home on Monday to go by a friend living a few streets away. She then went to a pharmacy on the main road near Maharaj Trace to purchase some diabetes testing strips for her friend and a nasal spray for herself (Shaquana).
“In coming back tragedy hit,” she said, adding, “He knock the child right off the pavement. When I reach on the scene I saw my child full in blood. The side of her head was slit. She was unconscious.”
Complaining that the ambulance took a while to respond, Hills said after waiting about 15 minutes they put her daughter in a tray of a resident’s van and proceeded to the hospital with police escort. “When we reach Ramatally Park the ambulance was now coming down. I mean come on this was a life and death situation so we continue to pursue until we reach the hospital.”
While the doctors and nurses tried their best to save her daughter’s life, Hills said her daughter’s injuries were too severe.
While the driver was taken into custody, the grieving mother said she was stunned to learn that he was released.
“I did not feel please about that because at the end of the day when you go for a license and you do your license you ought to know that it have pedestrians on the road and if you are a driver you ought to look out for pedestrians. My child was killed on the pavement. She was not in the road, she was in the pavement walking on her way home. I lost a beautiful child.”
The mother said she was told by residents that the driver, who also lives in the community, was speeding when he struck Shaquana. She also said two nights ago the man’s car reportedly stalled by a church near their home and had to be wrecked.
“If allyuh know allyuh vehicle not good why drive it on the road for life to loss? My innocent child dead and gone,” she cried.
Wiping away tears, Hills lamented, “I am a mother, no one know my pain. All I am saying is I hope I get justice. Why I say I hope I get justice because it could have been anybody child that was walking on that pavement and get bounced down.”
Hills described her daughter Shaquana as a respectable and loving person.
She said the teen was aspiring to become a surgeon and was doing well in her online classes.
“Ever since I know my child from primary school to secondary school she always willing. She always put her best foot forward,” Hills lamented. Saying that she would never recover from this pain of losing her child, she recalled her last words to her daughter, “I said, ‘baby be safe and come back.’”
Shaquana’s grandmother Erica Hills recalled that (Shaquana) combed her hair and told her she was going by her friend on Monday.
“She was strong, she was jolly. We laugh a lot whole day and at the end of the evening we heard the car knock her down,” the grandmother lamented. She said Shaquana will be sadly missed by her four-year-old brother, eight-year-old sister, other relatives and friends.
Investigations are continuing.
