A man was crit­i­cal­ly in­jured and his four year old cousin was al­so hurt af­ter a car slammed in­to them in Pe­nal on Sun­day.

Seep­er­sad Nages­sar, 41, suf­fered se­vere in­juries while the child suf­fered a head in­jury.

They are ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice ar­rest­ed the dri­ver last night.

Ini­tial re­ports stat­ed that around 3.20 pm they were lim­ing on the side of a road at Dig­i­ty Branch Trace to the back of Nages­sar's home when a car came speed­ing down the hill. It ran over them and trapped them un­der the ve­hi­cle for sev­er­al feet. Even­tu­al­ly the car crashed against a rub­bish heap down a slope off the edge of the road. The dri­ver came out the car and ran away, po­lice said. Nages­sar's fa­ther, Ramd­hanie Nages­sar, be­lieves that if his son had not sheild­ed the child she might have suf­fered fa­tal in­juries. He be­lieves the dri­ver was in­tox­i­cat­ed.

The 73 year old man said his grand niece re­ceived stitch­es but her con­di­tion is not con­sid­ered crit­i­cal, but his son is fight­ing for his life.

WPC Sel­by is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.