Although he is bedridden, Richard Fresco’s dream of getting a better home for his mother is closer to becoming a reality.
Fresco of Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam has been laid up since he fell off a truck nine months ago. He currently lives in a dilapidated shack and is elated that on Wednesday last construction of a two-bedroom wooden house started. The house is being built courtesy of General Manager of Operations at the Oldendorff Bauxite Company Zakaria El Dip and his wife Antje El Dip through the Rotary Club of New Amsterdam.
Fresco shares his current rundown domain with his mother Virginia Beatrice Giddings, 66; his nephews, John, 11 and Isaac, 10 and his seven-year-old niece, Holly. Their mother died.
Fresco who started working at a saw-mill almost a year ago said he regretted that he was not able to fulfil his dream of improving his life and providing his mother with a better house. He told Stabroek News that he was planning to “work and save some money to fix it [the shack]” and although his dreams were shattered he is still praying that one day he would be able to walk again.
At the time of the accident he was offloading materials from a truck when he slipped and fell. He was unable to move his hands and feet and the other workers assisted in getting him into a taxi which rushed him to the New Amsterdam Hospital. X-rays proved that he had damaged his spine and also suffered a fractured neck.
He was transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where doctors had to install steel in his neck during a surgery.
He spent about four months at that institution and then two months at New Amsterdam Hospital before being sent home.
Fresco has to visit the hospital twice weekly for check-ups and a relative would lift him out to the taxi which his mother barely scrapes up money to pay for. He also underwent therapy while in hospital, but is barely able to move his limbs.
House
Ever since the El Dips learnt of Richard’s plight they have been helping him with food hampers, transportation to go to the hospital and were also planning to build him a house.
Stabroek News highlighted Richard’s plight along with a contact number on Christmas day and several persons expressed an interest in helping the family.
Someone also offered to build a house for them and while Giddings was waiting on the person to contact her again the El Dips came forward and made a start.
She has so far received money from two persons through Western Union Money Transfer and from someone who sent it from “overseas.”
A man who suffered similar injuries as Richard and had undergone surgery in India was also expected to deposit some money into Richard’s account.
According to Giddings, a woman also sent her US$100 through Money Gram but she was unable to uplift it because her last name was left out from her ID card and just Virginia Beatrice is stated on it.
Although she had the same problem at Western Union she was able to obtain the money because someone who works there could have identified her. She also received a call from a man who asked her to go to Vlissingen Road in Georgetown to pick up some “foodstuff” that his relative sent her from overseas. However, a few days later when she called the number the man had called her from before going, the person who answered told her he did not know what she was talking about.
Giddings receives an old age pension and Fresco has now started to receive a disability benefit from the National Insurance Scheme. But the money is still “not enough to buy food and tonic for him and to look after my grandchildren”, she said.
This newspaper visited the family last Tuesday as the carpenters got down to work and met Sunil Gopaul who is supervising the construction on behalf of the El Dips.
Gopaul, a supervisor at Oldendorff, said the construction of the house was supposed to start since last year but it got delayed. They also waited on the other person as well as members of an organization who had indicated that they wanted to build a house as well.
He said the other persons are welcome to come forward and assist with the completion of project including the plumbing, painting and furnishing.
Shocked
Antje El Dip, who is Dutch, also echoed the call for persons to come forward and assist with the painting and furnishings and said right now they are running out of materials.
She received some building material from Amarally Sawmill where Fresco worked as well as some help from an employee of Boskalis, Bill, who is also a member of the New Amsterdam Rotary Club.
Antje who has been involved in helping needy persons in Guyana on her own related to Stabroek News that she learnt of Fresco’s plight through a friend, Pamela Bacchus.
She said Bacchus accompanied her to see Fresco and after she saw the condition he was living in she was brokenhearted. According to her, “I cried and walked out; I couldn’t look anymore, it was too much for me. I couldn’t sleep for one week…”
She said rats were eating Richard’s feet “and nobody was trying to help. His mother is old and she cannot carry that weight alone.”
She subsequently contacted Bill who is also Dutch and his wife, Marlyn and they promised to help. “I took Bill there one month before Christmas and he too was shocked.”
Antje said her husband Zack has provided fulltime employment for Richard’s older brother under the condition that US$100 of his salary is deposited monthly in the bank to take care of his mother.
MRI
Fresco who cannot wait to get back on his feet said he received a little hope after a bone specialist at the NA Hospital told him that there was a chance he could walk again.
But first he has to find $200,000 to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan of his entire spine done at a private hospital in Georgetown.
“I feel happy to hear that something can be done but the money is the problem. If I get the money today I would do it [MRI] because who would want to lie down here all the time?” he asked sadly.
Glancing out through the open window at the men as they work on his new house, Fresco said, “Sometimes I want to get up and go outside and if my [older] nephew is around he would assist me; if not I have to stay right here…”
He expressed gratitude to the persons for helping to provide him with better living conditions and vowed that “when I start walking again I would go and thank them personally because what they are doing here for me is what I was supposed to do for myself.”
Fresco who went through a struggle in life since he was a child had been taking care of his mother, niece as well as his nephews and his mother now has to take care of him “like a baby.”
His mother said that a physiotherapist had visited her house once and demonstrated to her how to massage Fresco and she continues to do that especially when he is in pain. She said though that she is no expert and wished she was given some more training on how to massage better.
Anyone interested in helping Richard and his family can contact his mother Virginia Giddings at 650-0672.