A mining officer, who was stabbed at Black Water Backdam, died at the Ogle Airport yesterday afternoon, before an ambulance could rush him to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) for emergency medical attention.
Dead is Conrad Semple, called Junior, of Princes Street, Georgetown. The deceased worked at various interior locations in recent years as a mining officer.
This newspaper understands that Semple was stabbed in the back at a mining camp in the Black Water Backdam location.
He was then rushed to Mahdia with a knife still protruding from his back and taken to the hospital in that community.
A resident told this newspaper that the incident occurred some time around 3am yesterday. Semple was treated at the Mahdia Hospital, they explained, but medical personnel there were unable to remove the knife from his back.
Arrangements were immediately made to have the man air dashed to the city for further medical attention. However, heavy fogging delayed the departure of the flight from the mining community.
The flight carrying the deceased arrived at the Ogle Airport shortly before 4pm. When Stabroek News arrived at GPH at about 4.30pm Semple still had not been rushed to the hospital.
A relative there told this newspaper that they had been informed that Semple died shortly after touching down at the airport.
“We have been trying for a while now to get an ambulance to go collect him at the airport,” an upset relative told this newspaper.
The relative said that they had been moving back and forth between various hospital offices trying to find out why the ambulance was taking so long to arrive with Semple. “They told us that the ambulance which left for him had to divert and go somewhere else,” the relative explained, “and they tell us that it didn’t make sense picking him up from the airport because he was already dead…but a doctor told me that they have to bring him to the hospital so he can be pronounced dead here at the hospital.”
The incident, according to the relative, occurred some time late Thursday night and during the wee hours of yesterday morning. Some time after 7am yesterday, they said, someone called one of Semple’s sisters to inform her about the incident.
“Up to 12 this afternoon we talk to them and they told us that he was still alive,” the relative related. “We still don’t know exactly what happen to him. All they telling us is that he get stabbed and that the knife lef’ in him.”
They further said that Semple had recently been granted a US visa and was expected to travel soon.
