Local Guardian News
Doctors brought girl 'back to life' after Lambeth shooting
10:55am Monday 13th February 2012
Paramedics who treated a five-year-old girl for a gunshot wound brought her 'back to life' twice after she was hit by a bullet in the chest, a court has heard.
Ambulance crews performed a 'life saving' operation on little Thusha Kamaleswaran after a masked gang fire three shots into her uncle's shop in Stockwell.
The incident on March 29 last year left her permanently paralysed from the waist down, but in a statement read at the Old Bailey on Friday, February 10, doctors said she would not have survived without emergency surgery at the shop.
Edward Brown QC, prosecuting, told the court Thusha suffered a cardiac arrest which left her “physically dead” for between one and three minutes, but paramedics succeeded in re-starting her heart.
He said they performed “life-saving surgery” to stop pressure building up inside her chest causing serious internal bleeding.
He said: “Without this surgery, it is unlikely she would have survived.”
After being rushed to hospital, the injured girl suffered a second cardiac arrest but once again survived. She was given a blood transfusion following damage to major blood vessels.
The bullet hole in her chest was “smaller than a five pence piece”, Mr Brown said.
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of the moment Anthony McCalla, from Streatham, along with his accomplices Nathaniel Grant and Kazeem Kolawole, allegedly targeted the Stockwell Food and Wine shop.
The defendants, all members of the Brixton based GAS gang, were trying to hunt down a man from a rival gang, the court heard.
The jury heard evidence from 35-year-old Roshan Selvakumar, who was also hit in the crossfire as the alleged gunman, Grant, fired shots into the shop.
In a statement read to the court Mr Selvakumar said: “I remember lots of things happening very quickly.
“I remember bottles smashing by my feet. I suddenly felt a blow to the face.
“I thought I had been hit by a bottle. But [my friend] came up to me and told me I had been shot in the face”.
McCalla, of Oakdale Road, Streatham, Grant, of Camberwell New Road, Camberwell, and Kolawole, of Black Prince Road, Lambeth, deny one count of attempted murder, two counts of grievous bodily harm and a final count of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The trial continues.