SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Even with her lit­tle body wrapped in ban­dages af­ter suf­fer­ing sec­ond-de­gree burns when she fell in­to a pot of boil­ing lentil peas, lit­tle Shaz­ade Si­mon tried to con­sole her wor­ried rel­a­tives.

“Al­lyuh come back lat­er, don’t cry,” the three-year-old Shaz­ade could be heard say­ing in a video record­ing which has been shared on so­cial me­dia.

At the time, the child was sit­ting up on a bed at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Shaz­ade died at the hos­pi­tal on Mon­day, six days af­ter the in­ci­dent, leav­ing rel­a­tives shocked and heart­bro­ken.

Shaz­ade was ac­cus­tomed to go­ing to her grand­fa­ther’s veg­etable and mar­ket shed at Morne Roche Road, Williamsville.

When her moth­er, An­delle Lazar, took her to the stall last Wednes­day, a pot of lentil peas was be­ing cooked on a fire­crack­er on the ground at the back of the shed.

In an in­ter­view at the stall yes­ter­day, Shaz­ade’s aunt Marisa Brizan de­fend­ed the fam­i­ly, say­ing the child was not left un­su­per­vised.

She said there were sev­er­al peo­ple in the shed and as soon as it hap­pened, some­one picked Shaz­ade up, wrapped her in a damp tow­el and she was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal.

Brizan said they be­lieve her niece ac­ci­den­tal­ly stum­bled and fell in­to the pot.

“It is not like she was un­su­per­vised. It had peo­ple here who were watch­ing her. I came to go down the road and she was sit­ting on a chair. She was not just run­ning around,” Brizan said.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, Brizan’s moth­er had gone to the wash­room when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

“She is al­ways here (at the shed). She is ac­cus­tomed, so she knows very well you don’t go there, but her moth­er was there, ap­par­ent­ly she was go­ing to meet her moth­er and she stum­ble,” she said.

Shaz­ade’s death came a day af­ter five-year-old D’amari Jef­frey drowned at the Fun Splash Wa­ter Park in Debe, prompt­ing pub­lic crit­i­cism of the child’s moth­er and more pub­lic de­bate on whether par­ents are pay­ing due care and at­ten­tion to their chil­dren.

Stress­ing that it was an ac­ci­dent, how­ev­er, Brizan said, “No­body is go­ing to pick her up and put her in a boil­ing pot of wa­ter. She fell in by mis­take, big peo­ple does be walk­ing and stum­ble and fall so she can’t stum­ble and fall too?”

While the po­lice re­port stat­ed that she was put in a buck­et of wa­ter and tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, Brizan said that did not hap­pen. She stressed they wrapped her in a damp tow­el.

Shaz­ade who at­tend­ed the Mayo EC­CE suf­fered burns to 25 per cent of her body around her but­tocks and stom­ach. One of her hands al­so got burnt.

How­ev­er, Brizan said she was in good spir­its and they be­lieved she would have been dis­charged soon.

“The day this child went in there she was mov­ing around and talk­ing and singing and every­thing nor­mal. We start­ed prepar­ing the room to make sure she has a bed net and thing for when she came out be­cause it is a burn,” she said.

De­scrib­ing her as God-sent, she said Shaz­ade was loved dear­ly.

“She was every­thing, in­tel­li­gent, amaz­ing, beau­ti­ful, won­der­ful, smart, brave, hap­py. She was gor­geous. She was fun.”

Brizan said they were not sure what caused her death but were await­ing the re­sults of the au­top­sy.

The po­lice re­port clas­si­fied her death as ac­ci­den­tal. Of­fi­cers of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. Mean­while, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) yes­ter­day stat­ed that a pre­lim­i­nary re­port in­di­cat­ed that ap­pro­pri­ate med­ical at­ten­tion and care were ad­vanced to the child.

Stat­ing that it com­mis­er­at­ed with the par­ents, the au­thor­i­ty said an au­top­sy had been pri­ori­tised for to­day to de­ter­mine the cause of death and bet­ter un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances. The SWRHA was al­so con­cerned about the video of the child tak­en while she was in the hos­pi­tal’s care.

Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty:

Put chil­dren first

In the wake of fa­tal in­ci­dents in­volv­ing chil­dren, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is again urg­ing par­ents and guardians to put chil­dren first.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the au­thor­i­ty said ac­tiv­i­ties in­volv­ing chil­dren should be con­duct­ed un­der the care­ful su­per­vi­sion of a trust­ed adult, as chil­dren who lacked prop­er su­per­vi­sion were more ex­posed to ac­ci­dents, harm and abuse.

Re­mind­ing the pub­lic that “child pro­tec­tion was every­body’s busi­ness”, the au­thor­i­ty said every­one has a du­ty to keep chil­dren safe and to re­port any in­ci­dent or sus­pi­cion of abuse to the po­lice at 999 or the au­thor­i­ty at 996.

It ad­vised par­ents and guardians to keep haz­ardous liq­uids, ma­te­ri­als, sharp ob­jects, med­ica­tion and any­thing that could po­ten­tial­ly cause in­jury out of a child’s reach. Ad­vis­ing that they al­so keep a watch­ful eye on chil­dren when at the beach, riv­er and pool, the au­thor­i­ty said chil­dren should on­ly be al­lowed to ven­ture in­to or around bod­ies of wa­ter with an adult present. It said ex­posed wa­ter con­tain­ers, buck­ets, bar­rels and tanks should al­so be cov­ered.