A woman who was 38 weeks pregnant and should have delivered her twins on New Year’s Day went into labour and had to undergo an emergency caesarean section after she was injured during a hit-and-run in Kingstown on Thursday.
Britney Weekes, 34, of Belmont spoke to iWitness News via telephone from her hospital bed at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) on Tuesday.
Her twin babies — a boy and a girl — have been discharged from the hospital but have to remain there with their mother, who is nursing a fractured leg and damage to her kidneys, in addition to recovering from the C-section.
Weekes told iWitness News that she is a vendor who sells drinks at the Geest Shed Bus Stop in Kingstown.
She went uptown around 5 p.m. Thursday to buy supplies and was walking along Upper Bay Street, between Greaves and Payless when she felt “a sharp lash in my back.
“When I spin around, a jeep lashed me in my back and I fell to the ground. The person never stopped,” Weekes told iWitness News.
“All I could hear in my consciousness was someone telling the lady, ‘Miss, if you only run off, you will make it bad for yourself.’
“After then, I was there, and the lash that I got literally took me into labour because I was feeling a whole lot of pain and I was there a good while before the ambulance came.”
She said the ambulance took her to MCMH, the nation’s main healthcare facility, which is located at the other end of the city.
“I had to end up and go and take emergency surgery,” Weekes told iWitness News. “I’m in the hospital since Thursday and not one day has that individual come here and look for me.
“The incident left me with a fractured foot, and the lash I got in my back, the doctors told me that it affected my kidney, and honestly, I don’t know what to do.
“No police involved nor nothing to come here take a statement from me or nothing like that. And the person that did the damage to me never, ever, ever, ever came and looked to me to see whether I’m dead or alive, or my kids them dead or alive.”
Weekes said she did not know who was driving the vehicle that struck her.
She said the doctors have told her that her babies are healthy.
“Right now, the babies are discharged but I’m not. I’m still in the hospital but they are with me… I’m still here under medical attention.”
She said that because of her situation after the accident, she has not been able to go to the police.
“… when I came to A&E before they took me to the surgery room, one police came to me and all he did was took my name and my number.”
However, Weekes said that calling her would be a waste of time because her phone was damaged in the accident.
Weekes spoke to iWitness News on a phone belonging to another person at the hospital.
“I would like some kind of steps to be taken and to find out who was the person that did that to me and why would they do that to me and not even come and look to see whether everything is okay with me or not,” Weekes told iWitness News.
“Number one, I wasn’t in the road. I wasn’t in the road. I was walking on the side of the road, minding my business going up. All I feel is one lash in my back. And from the time I get the lash, that was it.”
Weekes also has a 14-year-old daughter and a son who turns 2 next week.
“And all he does every day is cry for his mother because I’ve been away long from him, and he’s knows I’m not accustomed to that. So every time I call to hear him, he does be crying, crying, crying.”