Two months later…No charge for soldier who almost killed 9-year-old in Mahaicony accident

Mar 30, 2015 News

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By Dale Andrews

Marsha Williams was busy eking out a living as a cook in the hinterland for her children when she received a message that her daughter, Hollyann, was struck down by a car. She feared the worse.
The woman immediately packed up and caught a flight home. There she found her daughter battling for her life in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
But while she is thankful that the doctors have saved her daughter’s life, Williams is livid with the police for denying her justice.
So far the man who is responsible for her daughter’s paralysed state is still walking around scot free, almost two months after the accident. The police’s excuse for the delay in taking the matter to the courts was that they were awaiting statements.
But even after receiving the statements they were seeking, the police are not too eager to charge the driver who happens to be a Sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force.

On February, 6, last, nine-year old Hollyann Angel Archer was standing in the corner of the Fellowship, Mahaicony Public Road, heading home from the Novar Primary School when she was picked up by a speeding car driven by the army personnel and deposited several yards away.
According to reports, the car that struck little Hollyann was overtaking another vehicle at the time and only came to a stop after mowing down two lamp posts.
The unconscious child was picked up and rushed to the nearby Mahaicony Diagnostic Centre but her injuries were so severe that she had to be transferred to the GPHC where she was immediately admitted to intensive care.
Little Hollyann suffered a fractured skull, a broken left leg, broken left side jaw, spinal injuries and lacerations to several parts of her body.  She spent 18 days in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit on a life support machine and five more days recovering in the Children’s Ward.
“I was in the interior when I got a message that I should call home immediately. My mind flashed to my daughter, so I called home and my sister told me that my daughter got hit down. I did not know how bad it was, so I made contact with another sister who was at the hospital and she gave me more details,” Williams told this newspaper.
She said that she started screaming. The following day she caught a flight to the city. She landed at the Ogle airport around 15:00 hours and less than an hour later Williams was at the hospital to see her child.
The sight of her daughter in the Intensive Care Unit overwhelmed her so much that she subsequently broke down.
“She had tubes hooked up all over her body,” Williams said.
Although the doctor’s prognosis was not good, Williams like any other mother, summoned up all the faith she had and prayed earnestly for her daughter.

Doctors said that her daughter’s brain was swollen and that it was bleeding.
“I was thinking that she would not be a normal child again. The doctor actually told me that she will not be able to walk again because of the spinal injuries,” Williams said.
In fact although Hollyann Archer survived the worst, she has been confined to a bed or wheelchair ever since the accident.
According to her mother, the man who struck her down did make contact with the family and expressed remorse.
“Two days after the accident, he did send a colleague to us asking if he could visit the child. I did not object because this would be the first time I will see him. I never had nothing against him, it was an accident,” Williams said.
“I greeted him as normal and he said he was sorry and he promised to keep in touch with me. But he visited two other times and that was it,” she added.
When it comes to the police, the woman expressed total dissatisfaction with the way they investigated the matter.
She said that on the day she came from the interior, the day after the accident, she contacted the investigating rank and she was told that instructions had been handed down from “big ones” to release the driver on $50,000 station bail.
This she found strange, since she argued that her daughter was critical in the hospital and the driver was being released prematurely.
“Only the other day a minibus driver knock down somebody and he had to spend 72 hours in the lock-ups although the person did not have half the injury that my daughter get,” Williams stated.
“I asked the investigating rank if he went to see my child. I tell he that she on a life (support) machine.”
But the rank dismissed her, claiming that he will do so when the child recovers enough to give a statement.
“He never visit the child. In fact no police ever visit my child in hospital to see her condition, yet they released the man who struck her down,” Williams said.
A few weeks after the accident, the investigating rank was transferred and another rank took over the matter.
The situation led her to approach the police Office of Professional Responsibility for redress.
“ASP Baird had to instruct the rank to look into the matter and take a statement. The (new investigating) rank promised to do so but it was only after we made several calls later that some action was taken and the police visited my child,” Williams explained.
But still the police could not find one of the witnesses. Last week this newspaper intervened in the matter and was informed that the witness had finally been contacted and a statement taken.
“I feel terrible and frustrated because like the police are not doing much for accident victims, despite all the accidents on the road. Everything is just a cover-up. In the meantime my daughter is suffering. If somebody don’t move her, she can’t move,” Williams lamented.
She said that because of her daughter’s condition she has been unable to return to work, making life a bit difficult.
“It seems like if anything involving the police or army happen, the ordinary people don’t get justice,” Williams said, adding that another villager was previously killed by a senior army official and nothing came out of that matter.
The police have said that a report on the matter was completed last week and the file was being sent to the Director of Public Prosecution for advice.

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