Five people are now patients at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) after they were injured during an accident in which the truck they were travelling in collided with one owned by Barama Company on Monday afternoon, some 100 miles from Buck Hall, Essequibo River.
Injured are: 19-year-old Roberto Cornelius, 45-year-old Deonarine called ‘Brother Tom’ of Henrietta, Essequibo, 50-year-old Robert Guy who is a Frenchman, a man identified as a porter and a woman who is at present in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) at GPH.
When Stabroek News visited the hospital yesterday afternoon this newspaper was able to speak to Cornelius and Deonarine. Cornelius’s speech was limited because of injuries to his lips.
However, he managed to relate that they were driving along a track some 100 miles from Buck Hall in the correct lane when a Barama truck, which was in their lane, came towards them. According to the young man the driver tried to avoid colliding with the Barama truck but could not avoid it.
Deonarine said that on Monday afternoon it was raining and he and ten other men had covered themselves with tarpaulins in the tray of the truck. “I don’t remember anything…I was unconscious,” Deonarine said.
The man said that he remembers being in the tray of the truck, feeling a sudden jolt and then he went “blank”. Deonarine said that when he gained consciousness he remembered feeling blood oozing from his temple and pain in his leg. The man explained that they were taken to a medical facility at Barama where they received some treatment and he and the other four were admitted to the GPH on Monday night for further medical attention.
A friend of Guy’s, who is also French, using hand gestures and his limited English managed to explain that he saw Deonarine being pitched out of the truck’s tray during the accident.
Deonarine broke his right leg in several places and sustained a cut along his right temple. Cornelius suffered mostly injuries to his face which was heavily swollen, while Guy sustained a broken jaw and minor spinal injuries and the man identified as the porter sustained injuries to his shoulder.
Stabroek News was unable to ascertain the condition of the woman who is in the High Dependency Unit; but according to a colleague who had visited her earlier yesterday afternoon she was in a stable condition.
The four men who are in the Open Wards B1 and B2 at the GPH were up to yesterday afternoon in stable condition.
