Eight year old continues to recover from traffic accident
Tonight, a Ladyville family continues to nurse their loved one to good health after a traffic accident almost claimed his life five days ago. But as I discovered this morning, that traumatic ordeal pales in comparison to their frustration with the justice system.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Eight year old Darwin Melendez had just had lunch and was on his way back to school when he was knocked off his bicycle by a garbage truck belonging to Ladyville Sanitation Engineers. The accident occurred at the corner of Perez Road and Quam Street, only four lanes away from where the little boy lives. According to David Melendez, as soon as they found out what had happened to his son he rushed to the scene.
David Melendez, Father
?When I reached there I just see the bike and blood at the corner of the side and I was feeling bad because my son right…when I reach there they tell me somebody done ker my son already by the military camp, they rush the boy, ker him. When I reached there I was trying to see what I could do with my son, right.?
The standard one student suffered head and body injuries. Melendez is now at home recovering from his injuries.
Gladys Perez, Mother
?He get three cuts on his head. He has a big cut…they sew it inside and outside, so that is the one that really hurts him because sometimes in the night, after he come out from the hospital, he say it hurts. Right now, like how the accident just happen, he has nightmares. He say that sometimes he dream that a car is getting to him and he get knock.?
At the time of the accident, driver Calbert Borland was behind the wheel. What caused the accident is still under investigation. The young victim says he was trying to cross the road he was hit.
Darwin Melendez, Traffic Accident Victim
?I mi want to put brakes, then he knock me down like this, then I drop down, then I mi can?t get up, then somebody come ker me by the doctor.?
According to the company?s co-owner, Queen Rosita Miller, at the time of the accident, the truck?s rear wheel had a flat tyre and she believes this is what saved the child from being crushed. The company has agreed to pay for the child?s medical expenses. This afternoon Miller told us she is sympathetic to the family as several years ago she was in a similar accident that caused nerve damage.
Queen Rosita Miller, Co-owner, Ladyville Sanitation Engineers
?What I would like to ask is that parents please take children to school. Children will always be kids and the guy is just in standard one; he is still a baby to be. And like I said before, the kids are always in the right. Even if adults think the kids are in the wrong, the kids will be kids and they will always be playing on the street.?
The Melendez family says their ordeal has been made even more difficult because the police continue to blame their son for the accident. Frustrated, they took the matter to the Ombudsman?s office… but to date, nothing has changed.
One year ago Melendez was shot in the right side of the head and blinded in one eye by armed intruders at his home in Trinidad Farm in the Orange Walk District. To date, that case remains unsolved.
David Melendez
?The same thing, I gone to the police and from that time to one year right now, nobody get arrested, nobody press charges for this. And I still have a bullet in my head and I need to do some surgery to take out this. Sometimes I have some bad headaches, I feel bad and it affects me a lot.?
Tonight the Melendez family is appealing to authorities to bring closure to both cases.
David Melendez
?My family, my lee daughter, because I have two children, a lee boy and a little girl and that keeps me going, keeps me alive and not try to do nothing wrong, try do good things… because I work too and this very hard, miss. And I hope that nobody suffer like how I di suffer this.?
