A 71-year-old woman run over by a man last Tuesday has spoken about her hurt at being branded part of a “small incident” by the man’s defence lawyer.
Every time I close my eyes I hear the screeching of tyres, then a crash and crunching of glass
“Of course a lawyer has to do his job, but would he have called it a small incident if it had been his mother?” a visibly pained Josephine Cesare asked, her broken leg resting on a footstool.
Mrs Cesare was going about her daily errands when a BMW driven by 19-year-old Sean Zammit slammed into her while reversing at speed on Tuesday morning in Reid Street, Gżira. Mr Zammit was trying to escape arrest at the time.
Aside from injuring Ms Cesare, he has been charged with dangerous driving, falsifying documents, damaging three vehicles and evading police arrest. He is also accused of committing a crime while serving a suspended jail sentence.
The incident left Ms Cesare with a broken femur and a troubled mind – and a troubled mind, especially when she read that Mr Zammit’s lawyer, Jose Herrera, had played down the issue, saying that a small incident had grown into something more serious.
“Every time I close my eyes I hear the screeching of tyres, then a crash and crunching of glass. I just want to put this behind me,” Mrs Cesare said, her head in her hands and her voice cracking with emotion.
Surrounded by her children and grandchildren, she described the event. “I saw the car from the corner of my eye and somehow moved a little. I think an angel must have pushed me out of the way, because had I not moved I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”
Mrs Cesare’s daughter, Annette Hamberger, was indignant. “An accident would be bad enough, but this was no accident. How can anyone say this was a ‘minor incident’? We’re talking about a human being having been run over and almost killed.”
There was glowing praise for the police and doctors who appeared on the scene. “The police were outstanding, from beginning to end. They all risked their lives and they all knew exactly what they were doing,” Mrs Cesare said.
She also wanted to thank two bystanders who tended to her as police wrestled with Mr Zammit and placed him under arrest. “One woman came running out of a hairdresser nearby and the other was a nurse. I don’t know who they are, but they were wonderful”.
Mrs Cesare’s living room, strewn with Santa Clauses and nativity figurines, was the epitome of Yuletide cheer yesterday morning. But the family’s traditional Christmas lunch at the Hambergers’ home was still up in the air.
“We’ll see what to do (this) morning,” Mrs Hamberger sighed. “It all depends on whether my mother will be able to make it down the two flights of stairs to the main door.”
Despite her ordeal, Mrs Cesare had put a brave face on things, her daughter Joan said. “We were all in a tizzy until she calmed us down. She told us ‘Look at it this way: this year, I’m your Christmas present’. And she’s right. We were seconds away from losing her.”
Mrs Cesare added: “It could have been so much worse...” she tailed off. “I was lucky, and I’m even luckier to have a family to help me get around and recover.” Clenching her teeth in pain, Mrs Cesare returned to her original irritant. “To me, this has been a tragedy, not a small incident.
“Thank God for my family. But what if I had been alone?”