Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
The mother of a 33-year-old woman who died two days after she was run over twice by a car driven by an intoxicated driver in Siparia wants the driver to be charged with killing her daughter.
Early yesterday morning, Anezia Lewis, of Santa Flora, succumbed to her injuries at the San Fernando General Hospital.
Footage of the horrific accident went viral yesterday, triggering a storm of outrage on social media.
Shortly before 10 pm on Monday, CCTV footage shows Lewis exiting the front passenger seat of a car in the carpark of Secret Lounge Bar, at SS Erin Road, Quarry Village.
She walked to another car and was speaking to a friend in the driver’s seat. The driver’s door was open.
The footage shows a blue Nissan B-15 vehicle quickly reversing and slamming into Lewis, who was dragged to the road.
The vehicle stopped briefly and drove forward, running over Lewis again as she tried to get up, pinning her under the car.
A man was almost struck as he ran to her assistance and had to scamper out of the way.
Eventually, a group of men lifted the car off of her. The driver, from Siparia, failed a breathalyser test with a reading of 65 microgrammes. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Lewis’s mother, Annamarie Lewis, said her daughter underwent six hours of surgery, was on life support, semi-conscious, but barely speaking.
The mother lamented, “She was dragged multiple times. It has a video with it. He was drunk like that and just knocked her over, over and over, crushed all her organs. She was crushed the doctor said. Her two foot were broken multiple times, her pelvis was broken, one lung had collapsed, she had eight break ribs back and front, the kidneys were bruised.”
Pleading with motorists not to drive while intoxicated, she said in 2008 her husband was killed in an accident at Mosquito Creek while she was critically injured.
She said her son was also seriously injured in another accident, but survived.
“They need to stop drink and drive, exercise more caution on the road,” she lamented.
When she visited the police station yesterday morning, she said the police informed her that the driver was charged with driving under the influence and fined $9,000. They told her they were awaiting the doctor’s report as investigations continued.
However, she wants him to be prosecuted for killing her daughter. “If you know cannot drink, why you drinking and driving to take away people’s children’s life? It did not have to be mine it could be anybody else. It could have been a child.”
The mother said she did not know the driver, and he had not reached out to them. Describing her daughter as a sweetbread, the mother of three said Lewis was her youngest and was kind and obedient.
She would have celebrated her birthday next month.
Siparia police are investigating.
