Toddler faces leg amputation

A four-year-old girl could lose a portion of her leg after being struck and dragged under a vehicle on Thursday while she and her two older siblings were crossing Independence Drive.
Faith Laville loves to dance and play, but the mother of the Mary E Pigott’s School kindergartener, Vanessa Laville, said doctors have informed the family that her daughter could lose from below the knee of her left leg.
Three weeks before her fifth birthday, the child was rushed into surgery to try and repair some of the damage she sustained.
“It is just bones she has left on the leg. We are here now because they [doctors] say she won’t be coming out anytime soon. She had anaesthetic but she has not woken up fully,” the distraught mother said yesterday.
Through tears, Vanessa said the child, who started in this September’s academic year, attends the primary school with her older siblings and they would walk to her workplace on Independence Drive after school, before continuing to the West Bus Station to take the bus to their home in Belmont.
She explained that based on what she understands transpired, the children upon reaching the pedestrian crossing outside Little Canton Supermarket were signalled to cross by drivers. She said traffic stopped, when a driver overtook the courteous drivers and struck her child.
Vanessa said the last of her three daughters was dragged under the vehicle, resulting in her skin, and muscles being removed, leaving bones. She added that there was also tissue damage to the thigh.
“They [doctors] said because it is all bone it could get infected and spread to the rest of her body. I’m supposed to see a plastic surgeon, but, I am thinking that because she just had that surgery they are just going to wait and see how she heals,” she added.
Vanessa said she is heartbroken that people are criticising her on social media for allowing the toddler to be crossing the road. She insisted the child was not alone.
 
(More in today’s Daily Observer)