Off-duty doctor cared for dying gas-and-dash victim

CALGARY — An off-duty doctor testified Monday how she provided immediate care to a gasstation worker who had been struck by a truck involved in what would be a fatal hit and run.

“[The victim] never once opened her eyes,” Dr. Jillian Walsh told the second-degree murder trial of Joshua Cody Mitchell. Walsh had been shopping nearby in June 2015 and said she heard a scream before running to the scene on a busy Calgary street.

Maryam Rashidi, 35, had been trying to stop a driver from leaving a Centex gas station without paying for $113 worth of fuel.

She chased the truck out into traffic and climbed onto the hood in an attempt to get the driver to come back.

The driver swerved, causing Rashidi to fall to the ground, where she was run over by the truck’s front and rear dual tires.

Mitchell, 22, was charged a few days later.

“I remember telling people what to do,” said Walsh, who didn’t have any medical equipment with her.

“She was breathing very rapidly, very shallow. I would say distressed breathing. She was completely unresponsive.

“She had a cut on her head and there was some blood around her on the ground. She had some blood on her mouth … I was worried there was a compound fracture on her right leg.”

Walsh said she stayed with Rashidi until paramedics arrived a short while later.

Tammy Lawrence from EMS provided primary care to Rashidi.

“I remember looking around. I saw people on the sidewalk, holding their heads, crying. I went over to the victim and I remember people standing around her,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence said both of Rashidi’s eyes were swelling and she was worried that Rashidi might have a spinal injury.

The woman never regained consciousness on her way to the hospital, Lawrence said. She died two days later. Dr. Tera Jones, assistant deputy medical examiner who conducted Rashidi’s autopsy, told court Rashidi had 33 injuries to her body.

One included bruising on the back of her left and right thighs in a pattern to “similar to a tread mark.”

The more serious injuries included fractures to a bone at the base of the skull and the first vertebra in her neck.

Jones said that led to a “shearing injury” to the brain that can result in a concussion, coma or death.

“She died as a result of the complication of multiple bluntforce injuries.”