Bull Bay heartache as 3-y-o killed in crash

China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) has come under fire for alleged incomplete construction works in Bull Bay, St Andrew, that have been blamed for the crash death of a three-year-old girl who ran into the path of a motor vehicle Wednesday evening.

There have reportedly been calls for the contractors to fix a small space in a wall to the front of the property through which Shadean Martin walked on to the busy throughfare.

Her father, Dean Martin, who was at home at the time, was a portrait of devastation on Thursday.

“The grandma come in and take up the uniform clothes fi go wash dem. She go through the gate and lock the gate and the little girl now go through the wall deh so weh you see the China Harbour people dem cut,” Martin said in a Gleaner interview on Thursday.

Dean, a father of 10, described his hometown as a place of doom. Shadean was his second youngest child, but he reminisced that she was mature beyond her years.

“Is a likkle big woman that. If the mother a wash the baby clothes, she come and put her little bucket beside the bath pan and she take up something,” Martin said of the infant’s independence.

The driver of the ill-fated motor vehicle has since been warned for prosecution.

Martin said the driver, who he saw at the police station, did not communicate with him but was remorseful about the tragedy.

“I see him in there crying. He was very emotional after the news came that the little girl passed,” Martin said.

The distraught father said that he had made contact with CHEC personnel on several occasions to undertake the repairs.

“You know how much time mi call dem fi come fix the wall. Dem say dem soon come … and all now him can’t come. Mi tell di man a five pickney mi have inna mi yard, and see it deh now,” he exclaimed.

The Gleaner made several attempts to reach CHEC on Thursday, but calls to its office went unanswered.

Charmine Campbell-Christie, principal of Boniface Early Development Centre, where Shadean was enrolled since January, said the infant was a quick learner and had a promising future.

“Very assertive! She knows what she wants and processes things very quickly. When she started, she was a little bit reserved, but then she warmed up … . It is just really, really sad,” Campbell-Christie said.

The principal, who visited the family home along with members of the school board, said teachers and students were traumatised and counseling sessions would be conducted.

Flowers and a red hand-made postcard with the inscription ‘We miss you, Shadean’ were placed on her desk.

Her class teacher, Deon Patterson-Stewart, was broken-hearted at the tragedy.

“It hasn’t been the same since. She was very active, always willing to participate,” Patterson-Stewart said.

Incensed residents blocked the roadway in protest Thursday, demanding that CHEC fix the wall immediately.

Jodi-Kay Nelson, Shadean’s mother, said that it wasn’t the first time that Shadean had forced herself through the crack in the wall.

“Mi always a tell her say mine her head stuck through there … . She know she can fit through,” Nelson said.

Her fondest memory of Shadean was her radiant personality and natural ability to make people smile.

“She just fun. She keep the house vibes, and now she gone,” Nelson said, trying to fight back tears.

The mother heard the impact of the crash but initially thought that it was a goat that was hit by the motorist. Closer examination confirmed her worst fears.

“Mi daughter gone. Mi nah go see her again. Oh, God! Mi always say she a go be the smarter one because she ask question a lot,” Nelson said, tearfully.

“Mi pray fi dem supm ya no happen to me cause me watch it pon di news … and mi nuh know how me would cope if one a my child ever gone, but it just drop right a mi doorway,” Nelson added.