THE DISTRICT OF Garden Land, St Michael was plunged into mourning New Year’s Day when nine-year-old Adita Nikisha Alexander-Jack died suddenly at her home.
The third form pupil of the George Lamming Primary School died in the arms of her great-uncle George Jack just after 1 a.m. after complaining of not feeling well.
Fighting to hold back tears and clutching a picture of his great-niece, 72-year-old Jack recalled how Adita throughout Old Year’s Night spoke of having pain in her feet and side and of feeling hot.
After giving Adita some iced water she requested to drink, Jack spoke of hearing his great-niece making a snorting sound before she passed away.
“I told her let me wipe your nose to see if she had some sort of cold that was bothering her but she blew her nose and just lay back down in her bed,” he recalled.
“When I looked at her the water came back down through her mouth and her nose and a little froth. I then leaned her over and more water ran down on the bed sheet.”
It was mere seconds afterwards that Jack, in panic, took his great-niece from the bed when she opened her eyes but suddenly closed them for the last time.
Jack said the girl had visited the doctor over the last several months to be treated for stomach pains and was given medication.“She even attended the paediatrician, who said she was too big for her age but nothing else,” he recalled.
He described Adita as an intelligent girl who loved to read the newspaper and who was complimented by school teachers for her work and behaviour.
Garden Land residents were also full of praise for her mannerly attitude to those in the district. (TS)
