Court told, doctor tended to hit and run victim
‘She never once opened her eyes,’ physician testifies at murder trial
Fatal hit and run victim Maryam Rashidi received medical treatment within seconds of being struck by a pickup fleeing the Centex station where she worked, court heard Monday.
Dr. Jillian Walsh testified she was on her way to Home Depot on 16th Avenue N.W. on June 7, 2015 when she came across the crash scene.
“I can’t remember if I heard the scream and looked over, or looked over and heard the scream,” Walsh told Crown prosecutor James Thomas.
“I saw an individual lying in the middle of the westbound lanes,” the doctor said.
Walsh said there were people huddled around the woman.
“I figured I should go over there and see if I could help,” she said.
“I started assessing the patient, the individual. She was on the ground, she was completely unresponsive.”
Walsh was testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Calgary man Joshua Mitchell.
Mitchell, 22, also faces charges of hit and run where a death has occurred, theft of gas and possession of a stolen Ford F350 pickup truck.
Walsh told jurors she didn’t see the collision which left Rashidi unconscious on the roadway. She assessed the victim as being at the lowest level a living being can be on the Glasgow Coma Scale.
“She wasn’t speaking or making any sounds at all, she wasn’t moving any of her limbs ... and she never once opened her eyes,” Walsh said.
“She was breathing very rapidly and shallow,” she said. “She had a cut on her head, and there was some blood around her on the ground, she had some blood in her mouth.”
Both Rashidi’s legs were badly bruised and Walsh believed she had a compound fracture on her right leg. The doctor said Rashidi’s head was tilted to the left.
“We were worried that she might have a neck injury,” said Walsh, who was assisted at the scene by an off-duty nurse and off-duty firefighter.
“I didn’t want to move her in case there was a spinal injury,” she said. “We were just doing what we could.”
Because they lacked a spinal board, Walsh said they were restricted on what they could do to assist the victim.
“We never moved her head,” she said.
Walsh said Rashidi never showed any signs of consciousness until paramedics took over from her.
“She was unresponsive the entire time that I was with her.”
Walsh said it appeared EMS arrived fairly quickly.
Meanwhile, juror heard from the pathologist who detailed the litany of injuries Rashidi suffered in the crash.
Dr. Tera Jones said she found 33 separate wounds on the deceased’s body, including what appeared to be tread marks on the back of both her legs.
Jones took jurors through a series of autopsy photographs showing Rashidi’s badly bruised corpse.
“She died as a result of complications of multiple blunt force injuries,” the assistant chief medical officer said.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Kim Ross, Jones agreed fractures to the deceased’s skull and first vertebrae, would have happened when she fell backwards to the pavement, not when run over by the truck.
The prosecution is expected to complete its case Tuesday.