Former ace athlete Sweet-I dies 16 years after paralysing gunshot injury

Sweet-I Robertson, who was left paralysed from the waist down when she was shot in the neck by a stray bullet outside her school in Petit Bordel in October 2010, died Monday night after a brief illness.

She was 33 years old.

Robertson’s injury and its enduring impact on her family are examples of the lasting impact of senseless gun violence on innocent people.

However, her attitude to her circumstances was an inspiration to many as she went on to graduate from the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College on June 27, 2017.

She crossed the stage in a wheelchair, pushed by her older sister, Racquel Robertson, an educator, to receive her graduation certificate.

Then, on July 1, 2023, Sweet-I completed the course of study and was awarded a Bachelor of Science in psychology with first class honours from the University of the West Indies, which she completed with assistance from Island Scholars Inc., a US-based charity.

She was considering using her training in psychology to provide online counselling to others when her health took a turn for the worse, leading to her death.

Robertson was a fifth-form student and a star athlete at Petit Bordel Secondary School when she was shot.

In 2011, she passed four of the five CXC O’Level subjects that she sat and received a Grade 1 in mathematics.

In December 2013, then 23-year-old Shelton Hooper was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for wounding Robertson.

Shelton and his brother, Sheldon Hooper, then 28, along with their cousin, Roland, then 26, were each sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for the attempted murder of Lesroy De Grads.

Shelton was also sentenced to five years’ hard labour on two charges of possession of a firearm with intent and unlawful use of a firearm.

In February 2014, days after celebrating her 21st birthday, Robertson told I-Witness News that she had forgiven the men for the harm they had done to her.

She said that one could never know how things would be in life. “You can’t hold a grudge forever,” she had said.

On learning of Robertson’s injury via a news report on the sentencing of her assailants, then-prime minister Ralph Gonsalves took personal interest in her case.

Gonsalves used Robertson’s case to highlight the impact of years of unregulated trade in weapons.

In March 2013, he told a regional workshop on negotiations for the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that Robertson’s case was a “symbol of the creeping scourge of arms and ammunition into the most remote corners of our Caribbean civilisation”.

In July 2014, Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party government donated a purpose-built no-income home in Fitz Hughes to Robertson.

In the February 2014 interview, Robertson told iWitness News that she is pleased with the government’s efforts to assist her, saying, “It has taken off a lot of burden off my family.”

She further said she was grateful for Gonsalves efforts in particular.

In 2013, the government arranged for Robertson to receive treatment in Cuba, where she spent three months receiving therapy.

When Robertson went to Cuba, she had only limited motion in one of her hands. However, after her treatment, she regained full control of her upper body and could move both hands and arms.

She had further told iWitness News that the stiffness and numbness in her upper body were gone, but doctors had said that the lower half of her body was “damaged really badly”.

The experience in Cuba helped her self-confidence, Robertson had told iWitness News.

Robertson is the second former ace athlete to die after a prolonged illness as a result of injuries in violence near their school.

On March 1, Alia Mc Dowall, 17, died at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital more than a year after being stabbed in the throat outside the Central Leeward Secondary School (CLSS) where she was a student and top athlete.

Mc Dowall had been battling health challenges resulting from the stab inflicted on her on the road outside CLSS, allegedly by a student of the Campden Park Secondary School on Nov. 28, 2024.

Doriel Duncan, a 17-year-old student of Bethel High School, was later charged with wounding with intent in connection with the stabbing and was granted EC$15,000 bail with one surety.

The matter is still before the court.