To be able to spend Christmas at home is what 11-year-old Nathasia Lindie hopes for after being cooped up in hospital for three months recuperating from second degree burns.
Nathasia and her three younger siblings were in bed early in the morning of September 23 when a kerosene stove, reportedly thrown by their father, caused flames to engulf the mattress. Her six-year-old sister Kimberly also suffered severe burns. About 80% of their bodies, including their backs, tummies, hands and feet were burnt.
Days after the incident, while her parents were still in police custody, Nathasia accused her father of starting the fire which disfigured her and Kimberly. Kimberly’s face was also burnt and she had been unable to talk.
However, their mother Marilyn Lindie told this newspaper on Thursday that Kimberly has been released from the hospital.
Marlyn, 42, and Paul Edghilo, 29, were reportedly engaged in a bitter row when the stove was hurled towards their children’s bed; the couple continuously blamed each other for the disaster.
They were arrested, but after Marilyn was released from police custody she practically lived at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where Nathasia is a patient of the Burn Care Unit.
Nathasia, a relative had reported, said she awakened while her parents were arguing that morning and saw when her father picked up the stove and hurled it in the direction of the bed. The child said that after the mattress caught fire her mother grabbed them and threw water on her to put out the blaze.
Her father, meanwhile, removed the mattress from the bed and used it to block the doorway, preventing her, Kimberly and their mother from passing. Before that, Nathasia reportedly related, Edghilo had let her two younger siblings, five-year-old Sabrina and three-year-old Isaiah out of the house. Left with no other choice, Nathasia courageously threw Kimberly out of the window and jumped after her.
Marilyn said that on the morning of September 23, she was making “chips” to put in the children’s lunch kits for school when Edghilo walked in around 4am.
“I wake up early and is fry I de frying chips for dem children to take for lunch when he walk in,” Marilyn related. “He don’t normally be home, he does normally be out doing he own thing. So he tell me to cook roti for him and I tell him to wait until I finish de children food.”
Her refusal to immediately carry out Edghilo’s demand enraged him, Marilyn said and he “hit” the kerosene stove and the pan from the kitchen table.
She has shared a relationship with Edghilo for the past 12 years, she said and there were often long periods during this time when she didn’t see him.
A few years ago, Marilyn explained, they moved from the Berbice River to Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam so the children could attend school.
“Since we move out here he would hardly be around and does come and go when he feel like… He was this sort of bully like,” Marilyn said.
Meanwhile, Marlyn’s mother, Zelda, had told Stabroek News that her daughter and Edghilo were always involved in fights and she had told them to go their separate ways.
Marilyn said she has suffered these last months and intends to make a new start with her life. Nathasia’s younger siblings, she said, are currently staying with Edghilo’s mother.
“I don’t think he [Edghilo] going to trouble us…as soon as my daughter come out de hospital I going to collect my other children from their grandmother and we will make a new start for it,” Marilyn said
