An eight-year-old student of the Mahaicony Primary School was last evening in a critical but stable condition in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) after he was struck down by a canter truck on the Mahaicony Public Road yesterday.

The lad, Sunil Singh, was on his way home from school during the lunch break when he was struck down by the vehicle, GHH 9532. His mother Ramrattie Tiwari told Stabroek News last evening at the public hospital that her son, the youngest of her four children, was standing on the road shoulder close to a pedestrian crossing along with two classmates waiting to cross over to the other side, close to his home, when he was struck down by the vehicle. He landed several feet away from the point of impact after he was hit by the vehicle.

According to the woman, on seeing the truck heading in their direction, her son’s friends ran into a nearby yard to avoid being hit. Tiwari said she and other relatives immediately ran out to the road following the accident, noting that she picked up her son in an unconscious state with blood flowing through his nostrils and his ears. He was taken to the Mahaicony hospital and was subsequently transferred to the GPH as his condition was serious.

The woman said that a brain scan was performed on her son at a private hospital late yesterday afternoon and the results indicated that he sustained severe injuries to his head. The lad was hooked up to a life support machine in the ICU last evening as medical staff monitored his condition.

Tiwari stated that the accident was another tragedy for her, noting that her husband passed away in 2007. He was a fisherman who died by drowning close to the Mahaicony area that year. The woman said she had found it difficult to raise her four children since then, the eldest who is 16 years old, and expressed hope that her son will recover from his injuries. She also said that Sunil was once hospitalized a few months prior to her husband’s death in 2007, after falling several feet from a verandah.

Stabroek News understands that the driver and the vehicle which was involved in the accident were taken into custody at the Mahaicony Police Station yesterday afternoon.