A 33-year-old Tuschen Housing Scheme man was chopped on the right hand and hit in the head after he objected to a taxi driver picking up another passenger.
Sherman Sooklall was admitted a patient to the Male Open Ward at GPHC just after 2 am on Sunday. When this newspaper visited the man at his Ward A1 bed yesterday afternoon he was in some pain but explained that he’d hired a car at about 1 am Sunday at the Tuschen junction and the driver had attacked him after he objected to the man picking up more passengers.
According to Sooklall, he’d hired a taxi from the Tuschen junction to take him home at the cost of $300. As they were driving along, Sooklall said, the driver proceeded to stop and pick up another passenger.
“I told him not to pick up that passenger because I pay him for the short drop and he isn’t suppose to pick anyone else up unless I said so,” Sooklall explained. “I tell he if he na want to do that then he can take me back to the junction or to the station.”
Sooklall said the driver stopped the vehicle a short distance away from his home and he exited the vehicle. The driver, the injured man explained, hit him behind the head with something and he collapsed to the ground.
“After he knock me in de head with something I fall down on the ground,” Sooklall said. “Is right there I been trying to catch myself when I see this driver coming with something and lift he hand all I coulda do was use my right hand to block my face.”
Sooklall believes that had he not used his hand to block the blow then he would have been chopped across the face and could have possibly lost his life. The man said that after the attack he managed to run to his neighbour’s house.
The neighbour, who is a nurse, rushed Sooklall to the Leonora Cottage Hospital for immediate medical attention. Sooklall said he was transferred that same night to the GPHC where he was admitted. “The doctor tell me that the chop deep,” Sooklall stated yesterday. “My nerves get damage.”
