Woman dies after being knocked over by horse!’ The headline may have come across as extremely unusual—unbelievable even, but police reports have never been more serious.
Eighty-four-year-old Theodosia Joseph from Victoria Street, Dennery was taking a casual walk near the Dennery beach when she was knocked over by a horse being ridden by a 14- year-old of Bois Jolie, Dennery. According to Dennery residents, the teenage boy was riding a “wild” horse when things got out of control. The incident occurred about 1:20pm on Sunday, February 27.
Theodosia was taken to the Dennery Hospital but pronounced dead on arrival. The elderly woman’s niece, Martha Albertin, says she’d got a call from her uncle with news of the incident. Fifteen minutes later she got another call: Aunt Theodosia was dead.
“She usually goes out for a walk,” the woman’s niece said.
She came from church on Sunday, came here to say hello. She spoke to her nephew and she told me she was going home to have lunch. I don’t even think she had lunch. She went out for a walk and next thing you know . . . I didn’t even know she was not at home. It came as a very big shock.”
The family was visibly distressed about their sudden loss, but expressed no anger towards the young boy or his family who they knew well.
“I feel very bad for my aunt because the way she died was really tragic,” Yolande Albertin, Theodosia’s grandniece said. “The boy as well. To live with that, knowing you were involved in an accident and somebody died, I feel bad for him as well. You cannot really punish a child; he’s under-aged. It’s if the parents would help us with the funeral costs. His father has already come to see us.”
According to the family the owner of the horse still has not come forward and no one in the neighbourhood seems to know whom the horse belongs to. Presently the animal is being kept in the Dennery Police Station’s backyard. The police press relations office told the STAR officers were attempting to find the horse’s owner. One officer said: “Obviously the horse cannot be taken to court to testify so it will be held until police can find the owner—if not it will be donated to one of the local stables.”
Martha Albertin says she’s not holding her breath until the horse is finally claimed.
“I don’t think anyone is going to come up and say that’s their horse, but obviously the horse has an owner and they borrowed it to the child. I don’t think the child took the horse on his own. People are saying it’s a very wild horse. The child was too small for that big horse. The child’s mother had to take him to the hospital because he flew off the horse when the horse knocked the lady. She fell down and the horse trampled her.”
The 14-year-old has reported to the Dennery police station several times since the incident and one of his schoolmates told the STAR: “Students are saying well, he killed the woman, he committed a crime and he has to go to jail to serve some time because of that. I don’t agree,” the boy said. “The lady had bad eyesight and hearing.”
The STAR attempted to contact the St Lucia Equestrian Association for a comment on the issue, only to find that the Association has not been active for almost one year.
A past member of the association told us: “In anything you do there are things you should and should not be doing. Some people obey the rules and some don’t, but circumstances can cause things to happen. I don’t know what the circumstances were in this case. There are so many factors, whether something frightened the horse, if the rider was doing something wrong. With riding, ability has more to do with it than age. Even skilled riders can have accidents. This incident is very unfortunate.”
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