Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Josh-El Cum­ber­batch, the 12-year-old boy who was in­jured in an ac­ci­dent on his way to school on Mon­day, was dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. How­ev­er, he is un­able to walk due to tis­sue in­juries to his left leg.

The boy’s moth­er, Oy­asanya Ogun­si­ji, said a bone spe­cial­ist ex­plained that her son can­not put pres­sure on his leg and ad­vised that she source a med­ical bed for him. She is con­cerned that her son might have to write the up­com­ing Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on a med­ical bed.

“I am not sure as yet how we han­dling things for SEA. It might be that he will have to write it while in bed as doc­tors said that he can­not put pres­sure on his left side and the leg, so on­ly time will tell,” she said.

Ogun­si­ji said she needs as­sis­tance to ob­tain a med­ical bed for him.

“I’m not sure where to get that, but any as­sis­tance would be ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” she said.

She is al­so hop­ing a teacher’s aide will be pro­vid­ed for him while he is re­cu­per­at­ing at home.

Josh-El was struck by a ve­hi­cle on the South­ern Main Road as he at­tempt­ed to cross the road to get to his school. Ogun­si­ji said he had just come out of a maxi taxi and on­com­ing ve­hi­cles had stopped for him to cross, but as he be­gan to cross the road a ve­hi­cle over­took a stalled ve­hi­cle and struck him, then hit an­oth­er car that crashed in­to a van.

“Even though he is alive and he has no bro­ken bones, there are still a lot of med­ical is­sues we look­ing at and we re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion lit­tle by lit­tle,” Ogun­si­ji said.

The moth­er of six said she is try­ing to get a wheel­chair for Josh-El who has to re­turn to the hos­pi­tal on Tues­day to see the bone spe­cial­ist. She said he on­ly start­ed eat­ing solids yes­ter­day and she has to mon­i­tor his progress.

Ogun­si­ji said the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle that struck her som had not yet con­tact­ed her.

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly as­sured that ef­forts would be made for Josh-El to write SEA. In a What­sApp mes­sage, the min­is­ter said: “Con­ces­sions are avail­able for emer­gen­cies and all rea­son­able ef­forts will be made to en­sure the stu­dent is able to write the ex­am­i­na­tion.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly added that the min­istry will fol­low up on his progress.