Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Writer

SHERINE FRASER used to spend most afternoons worrying about how her little girl, Shaneal Raffington, would get across the road after school from Shortwood Practising Primary and Junior High in St Andrew to get home on Grants Pen Avenue.

"Nuff time me sidung yah so an a wonder if one car a go lick her when she a cross or if anything do her," Fraser says, her eyes unfocused as she reflects on her daughter.

Ironically, just when she thought her daughter was safe, her life was snuffed out.

On the evening of July 17, as they made their usual trip home up Grants Pen Avenue from church, danger struck right in front of Fraser's eyes and there was nothing she could do to save her seven-year-old.

"As we reach the avenue, coming up we saw some girls standing at their gate and we saw two guys bending down under a truck and I only hear di girl dem bawl out: 'Man a come! Man a come!' But because me a walk go up the road me no really penetrate what dem a talk bout," Fraser says of the unfortunate incident.

Help! Help!

The men beneath the truck were hiding from two other men who had come for them and when the women made the alarm they ran. One of them ran directly behind young Shaneal as the gunmen fired at him. The bullet aimed at him missed.

"By di time me come up di road now, me only hear di shot. Di one dat me hear ketch her, and me see she a go down and me tek her up," she relates.

Fraser, who was pregnant with her third child at the time, picked up her seven-year-old daughter and ran for safety. But it was too late.

"Me come up the road with her and feel like she drop out a me hand, and when me look pon me clothes, me see a whole heap a blood and me start scream 'Help! Help'!"

But no one came to their rescue.

"Everybody run gone lef me. So me start give her mouth to mouth resuscitation same time and take her up and come up di road with her same way," the bereaved mother shares.

Battling for life

It was Fraser's brother who eventually came to her rescue. He put the child and her mother in his car and drove them to the University Hospital of the West Indies.

After battling for life for a few hours, Shaneal died in hospital, Monday, July 18.

"About 12:30 the Monday afternoon she dead. The morning me come and me see the doctor come plug out the oxygen and when me ask him why him plug it out, him say 'She gone'," Fraser says, her voice by now sounding dry and hollow as if she was about to burst into tears. But she never did.

She wanted Shaneal to become an airline attendant someday, but the bright little girl had already started to make plans to attend the Queen's School in St Andrew and then to one day become a nurse.