All five-year-old Jaden Cudjoe wanted on Saturday evening was a “sweetie.” But the trip to a nearby mini mart for the sweet treat eventually cost the youngster his life, as he was struck by a motorcycle and killed a stone’s throw away from his home. The incident which took the First Year Tabaquite Presbyterian School pupil’s life took place around 6.30 pm along the Tabaquite Main Road, Tabaquite.
However, the reports on how young Jaden died differ, as his family members said yesterday he was on the side of the roadway when the cyclist careened into him, flinging his small body almost 30 feet away. His uncle, Mikhail Joseph, who took him to the Radica’s Mini Mart that evening, recalled the events leading up to his nephew’s death during an interview with the T&T Guardian.
“He had just finished bathing and he say he wanted to go for a sweetie in the parlour. I was holding his sister, Rae-Murrie in my arms and he was walking at my side,” Joseph said. Joseph said on reaching to the front of the mini-mart, a motorcycle came around the corner, swerved and began heading straight for them.
“Instead of slowing down, he (cyclist) keep pressing more gas. Jaden was on the side of the road next to me and I pulled back and he pick up with Jaden instead...he (Jaden) was next to me and the bike was coming straight to me, I try to brakes for the baby and the bike pick up with him instead.”
The child, affectionately called ‘Bellies,’ was flung into the air and his tiny body rolled under a nearby van and came to rest in a drain.
“I run up to him and I was shaking him and bawling for his father to come...he wasn’t breathing or anything. His face, hands, feet, chest...everything was covered in bruises...he had tyre marks all up the whole side of his body.”
Joseph said after the incident, he went up to the cyclist and asked him what happened.
“After everything happened I went up to him and ask him what happen and he say he didn’t see Jaden on the side of me.” Jaden’s mother, Maurissa Cudjoe, was at home at the time of the incident and ran out into the roadway upon hearing the noise.
“I heard when the bike fell and because the boy (cyclist) is our neighbour, I ran out to see what happened. It’s only when I came to the roadside I heard Mikhail screaming for my husband to come., Cudjoe said.
Cudjoe and her husband, Jaime, ran to the child’s body and after checking for a pulse and not finding one, began performing CPR. The couple then rushed Jaden to the Couva Health Facility, where he was pronounced dead.
“My husband was giving breaths and I was doing the chest compressions, we didn’t stop until we got to Couva and they pronounced him dead,” the distraught mother said.
Cudjoe, a student nurse, said at the time she knew the child was dead but she could not bear the thought of him being gone.
“When I checked for the pulse and didn’t get any, I knew...but I couldn’t give up my baby just so...we really tried...I would have done anything to have my baby back,” she said before breaking down into tears. Her husband, a secondary school teacher, was too distraught to speak and had to be consoled by relatives. The couple have two other children, Jaime (Junior), six and Rae-Murrie, 18 months.
cyclist’s father on death
A short distance away from the Cudjoes’ home is the mini-mart where young Jaden was heading when he was struck and killed. The T&T Guardian understands that the cyclist who struck Jaden is a close male relative of the owner of the mini-mart, Ronald Maharaj.
Maharaj told the T&T Guardian his relative suffered multiple bruises about his body and was resting. He expressed sympathy for Jaden’s death, saying: “We are friends with that family for the past 23 years and it’s unfortunate that something like this had to happen. Nobody would want something like this to happen.”
Asked if the relative had spoken of how the incident unfolded, Maharaj replied: “He didn’t run into the child, the child run into the road, that is why it’s a police thing...the bike in the station, you could go and ask the police to see it.”