A passenger who fell and struck his head on Saturday, while boarding a Caribbean Airlines plane at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri, died on Sunday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Dhanchand Balkishun, 57, an American citizen of Bush Lot Village, West Coast Berbice bled severely from a head wound his wife said. The man who had re-migrated a few years ago was returning to the US to visit his elderly parents.
His wife, Akleema Balkishun, told Stabroek News that she had accompanied him to the airport in a taxi and left around 2.10 pm after he went through immigration to board a 2.50 pm flight.
She said her husband who did not suffer from any medical complaints was in perfect health when she said goodbye to him.
She said he subsequently told her that he had fallen off the stairs of the aircraft.
Contacted yesterday, a local Caribbean Airlines official at the CJIA denied that Balkishun had fallen off the stairs. The official, who declined to be named, said the man had fallen while standing in a line on the airport tarmac, waiting for his boarding pass to be checked before boarding the plane.
The official, who expressed shock at the passenger’s demise, said airline staff had immediately placed the man on a stretcher and taken him to the airport’s port health facility. From there, with the assistance of airport staff, he was transferred to the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) medical facility at Camp Stephenson where he was seen by a health officer.
The official related to Stabroek News that while at the facility the man had regained consciousness and when questioned by the officer had reportedly said that he “had one too many” and that he had not eaten. He said the man was then handed over to his relatives who were advised to take him to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre for further medical treatment. The airline official said the man had said he had no prior illness and he maintained that Balkishun had not yet started to climb the stairs leading to the aircraft when he fell.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Balkishun’s wife was upset that her badly injured husband had been kept at Timehri despite being badly hurt for almost two hours and was not taken to the hospital.
Despite claims from the airlines, the woman insisted that her husband was not under the influence of alcohol saying, “I could swear to that.”
Akleema recalled that “he had something to eat at home and all he had to drink on the way to the airport was a little water”.
She also insisted that her husband told her he had fallen off the stairs and this was confirmed by another passenger who was on the flight.
She remarked, “even if he was drunk it was their place to take him to the hospital. He had already cleared immigration and he was their responsibility…”
Akleema was at Mahaica, East Coast Demerara when the taxi driver received a call on his cellular phone from an official of Caribbean Airlines saying that Balkishun had been hurt.
The officials had checked the man’s phone book and contacted a resident at Bush Lot who provided the driver’s number.
The official, when asked, informed Akleema that medical personnel from the Guyana Defence Force were attending to her husband and that he was okay, except that his pressure was a bit high.
Akleema said she immediately turned back, but because of the distance it took her almost two hours to get to the airport.
She said she was about five minutes away from the airport when she received another call from the airline on the driver’s phone stating that they would take the man to the hospital in a taxi and would she pay the cost.
The woman said she told the person that would not be necessary as she was almost there. She said when she got to the airport, she met her husband, who was bleeding from a wound to his head, in the duty-free area.
Akleema said she immediately took him to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre where an injection for pain was administered and he was sent home.
However, half an hour after arriving home, she noticed that her husband appeared delirious and she rushed him to the Mahaicony Hospital where it was suspected that something was wrong with his brain.
He was immediately transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital and was admitted a patient.
The following morning, while in an unconscious state, he was referred to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) done to his brain. The scan revealed that he had sustained a fractured skull and haemorrhage.
He subsequently died.
A post-mortem examination is expected to be performed on the man’s remains tomorrow.
