BABY'S DEATH UNDER INVESTIGATIONBy INDARJIT SEURAJ Monday, November 2 2009
A 13-month-old baby girl is dead and police wants to know why.
An autopsy has been ordered on the body of the 13-month-old baby girl who was discovered unconscious at her home on Saturday and then pronounced dead at the Arima District Hospital, minutes later.
The death of Aleena Atwell, 13 months old, has engaged the attention of the police who interviewed relatives at the hospital shortly afterwards after noticing skin discolourations about her body. They then ordered that an autopsy be performed.
But relatives yesterday maintained that there was no foul play in the child’s death, pointing out that it is a suspected case of the dreaded dengue haemorrhagic fever.
“I take good care of my children. I would never do anything to hurt them,” Alana Estrada, the child’s mother said yesterday.
The mother of four cried uncontrollably during an interview at her mother’s home at Cumuto Road, San Rafael.
“She (Aleena) was the last thing to complete my life,” she added.
Estrada, 28, of Lp #54 Cumuto Road, said she and her common-law husband Geron Atwell were each questioned for close to four hours at the San Rafael Police Station following Aleena’s death. She explained that she found her daughter lying motionless when she woke up to get ready for work at about 6.15 am Saturday.
“I always watch to see if her belly is moving, to make sure she breathing but when I saw she was not moving I say, ‘Gerry the child dead,”’ Estrada said. An ambulance was summoned and Estrada administered CPR, as instructed by the ambulance dispatcher.
Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) arrived within minutes and administered oxygen to the child, but by the time Aleena arrived at the Arima Hospital, it was too late.
According to Estrada’s mother Adriana Mohammed-Estrada, the attending physician told relatives the discolouration on the child’s body could be an indication of internal haemorrhaging consistent with dengue haemorrhagic fever.
Estrada, a painter, said Aleena had a high fever before going to sleep on Friday but they passed it off as a fever caused as the baby was teething.
“She was normal the night before, playing and eating,” Estrada said.
She recalled how well behaved her last born was.
“People used to pass here and never know it had a baby inside. She was such a quiet, loving child,” she said.
Detectives at the San Rafael Police Station are expected to escort the baby’s body today, to the Forensic Science Centre, Federation Park, St James, where an autopsy will be done.
