Girl, 2, shot in neck, leg

It is a miracle that two-year-old Candy Loubon survived a gunshot wound to the neck.

She also could have been left paralysed.

The two-year-old, of Santa Maria Village, Penal Rock Road, in Moruga, was shot in the neck and left leg on Saturday while she was outside the family’s home.

Pellets from a shotgun cartridge remain lodged inside the little girl’s body. She remains warded at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital while the shooter, age 63, cannot be found.

Candy survived an accident on September 18 in which doctors had to amputate her father, Jamie Loubon’s right arm.

In that accident, her leg was broken; the same leg which now has the pellets lodged in it from Saturday’s shooting.

She spent more than a month in the hospital recuperating from the accident.

“The doctors are waiting to see if the body would push them (pellets) out. A doctor told me that she cannot believe that my daughter is not paralysed. She said a bullet touched a particular bone which paralyses people,” Candy’s worried mother, Cassie Fonrose, 22, said.

Police said the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute next door between two relatives.

They said it was during a heated argument the shooter fired at Candy’s cousin Wendell Mike, 31.

Mike no longer lives there but frequently visits. He is also warded at the hospital while another cousin, Shane Lemo, suffered minor injuries.

Fonrose said she was washing clothes downstairs when at about 6.30 am, she heard a loud sound.

She said Candy, who was drinking from a bottle nearby, fell to the ground.

Fonrose said she assumed the child became scared but when she turned around she saw one of the injured men running off, while the shooter had in his hands a homemade shotgun.

“When I heard the loud sound, I did not know it was a gunshot. I started to quarrel with the man (shooter) not knowing my child got shot. I thought she fell because she was frightened. Since 5 am they were quarrelling,” Fonrose added.

She soon realised her daughter was shot when Loubon saw the child’s injuries.

Immediately Fonrose said she became infuriated and ran in the direction of the shooter with the intention of hitting him with something. She missed.

“I told him that he shoot my child too. He did believe at first but turned back and run. This is my only daughter,” Fonrose said.

Moruga police visited the scene and recovered the shotgun in some nearby bushes.

With the assistance of other police from the Southern Division, they combed a nearby forested area for the suspect without any luck.

Loubon was at a lost for words yesterday and said the accident was one thing, but the shooting of his only daughter was another.

Candy’s two siblings, Emmanuel and Jamieson, ages four and one years, also sustained injuries in the accident which occurred at Bois Jean Jean, Moruga.

Reports said a TT Regiment SUV crashed into the family’s Nissan Sunny B-14, driven by Loubon. Loubon and Candy sustained the most injuries.

Investigations are continuing.