Autopsy shows Shazade died from a blood clot: grandpa calls for investigation

WENDELL Lazar is calling for a full-scale investigation into the death of his granddaughter Shazade Simon, after an autopsy on Wednesday at the mortuary of the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) showed she died of  deep vein thrombosis (a blood clot).

The autopsy on the toddler, who died at the SFGH on September 25, six days after she suffered burns from a pot of lentil peas at her grandfather’s vending stall at Morne Roche, Williamsville, said her death was unnatural but accidental.

The pathologist gave other causes as right heart thrombo-embolism and 12 per cent mixed partial thickness burns on the total body surface area.

Former SFGH medical director Dr Anand Chatoorgoon, who is also an anaesthetist and intensivist, asked to explain the autopsy findings, said in his opinion, while it was very unusual for a child to develop deep vein thrombosis, the clot could have been caused by the burns to her leg.

“Once the clot forms, the clot moves and it would go into the heart and block the circulation, and the child would die suddenly, like what happened on Monday.

“Nobody would have seen this. Nobody would have expected this.
"If you get deep vein thrombosis on your legs, it can be picked up on normal examination. The fact that her leg was masked by bandages and burns means no doctor could have picked it up.”

In an interview with Newsday after the findings, however, Lazar contended, “Something is wrong, something is wrong with that hospital.”

He said when he last visited her on Saturday, “She was good. Everything was normal with the child. She was talking, she was singing at the hospital. She had her (electronic) tablet and asked me to change it for her to watch another show.

“The doctor told me she good, the burns dry, and they were going to discharge her on Wednesday.

“Instead my child come out in a box.
"That can’t be right. Somebody has to investigate what went on in that hospital to cause my granddaughter to die. I want to know what really happen in that hospital.”

Videos in circulation on social media concurred with Lazar’s description of Shazade as they showed the gutsy little girl’s happy, smiling face, engaged, “with attitude” in conversations with family members.

Lazar said, “She was advanced for her age. She was smart.
"I believe she was here before. She was an old soul.”

Expressing his love for his only grandchild, he said, “She was my eyeball.”

The circumstances surrounding the death of Shazade and five-year-old Damari Jeffrey, who died by drowning in a pool at Fun Splash Water Park, Debe, has sparked outrage on social media, with people claiming negligence on the part of the adults who were present when the two incidents happened.

Lazar again called on Wednesday for those people to stop casting blame and branding him and his daughter “bad parents.”

He repeated it was an accident. He recalled he and his daughter Andell, Shazade’s mother, were among other people in his stall at Williamsville at the time of the incident on September 21.

He said he was making a pot of soup, which was bubbling on a firecracker on the ground, for his granddaughter, who came to the stall with her mother after school.

She only started pre-school at Mayo on September 4.

He said he went to the makeshift sink to wash his hands after kneading flour to make dumplings and asked his daughter to help by pouring water on his hands, as there was no running water.

He said in the twinkling of an eye, Shazade followed her mother, passing the pot on the stove, and stumbled and fell against the pot, causing second-degree burns to approximately 25 per cent of her body.

He said he glimpsed the commotion and immediately snatched her before he could finish washing his hands. He said he put her in some cold water, wrapped her in a damp towel, and got a car to take them to the hospital, where she was admitted.

He said she never lost consciousness.