Boy hurled 10 feet by snapped vehicle tow line

LUCKY ESCAPE

Death swiped at a Canouan boy last week – luckily, it missed.

If he had fallen at a different angle, instead of recoverng in hospital and looking forward to returning to school, the sad reality is that nine-year-old Alex Snagg could have been dead, and that’s no joke.{{more}}

A freak accident which occurred on Friday, August 26, at Grand Bay Beach, Canouan, has left nine-year-old Alex Snagg hospitalized at the Milton Cato Memorial hospital nursing serious injuries to his neck.

SEARCHLIGHT understands that at around 4 p.m., a jeep (PJ198), driven by Eli DeRoache, was attempting to tow another vehicle (T 6144), driven by John Compton, which was stuck in the sand, with a trailer, on which a boat was lodged, attached.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to free the stuck vehicle.

Meanwhile, Alex, who was on his way home from the wharf, was passing when during another attempt to free the vehicle, the tow rope broke, struck and wrapped around Alex’s neck and dragged him on his back for about 10 feet.

An eyewitness told SEARCHLIGHT that the boy was unconscious and had to be revived by an alert nursing assistant who was in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, Alex’s mother Kesilda had returned home from a hard day’s work as a hotel stewardess and had inquired about Alex and his seven-year-old sister Klinisha, who had gone to the bayside with him.

When SEARCHLIGHT visited Kesilda at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, the mother of five said that she sent an older daughter, Whitney, to get the two younger ones.

She said that shortly after, she saw the seven-year-old running home with tears streaming down her face.

“She just come and say Mummy, Mummy, Alex get lick down and he dead,” Kesilda said.

“I just collapse and started bawling. then somebody came the same time and told me he not dead and that he in the clinic.”

Later that day, they flew up to St Vincent and the youngster has been hospitalized since then.

At press time, he was still hospitalized with no indication of when he was going to be discharged.

Besides the serious neck injury, the grade four pupil was also badly bruised on his back and shoulders.

“He can’t remember what happened properly. he even woke up asking me where we were and he has been complaining of headaches and pain in his shoulders and back,” Kesilda told SEARCHLIGHT.

All the pain Alex is feeling notwithstanding, she said she is, however, grateful that he is alive, knowing it could have been worse, much worse.

“Thank God,” she said.

Meanwhile Canouan police told SEARCHLIGHT that the matter is still being investigated.