A man who was hit down and killed on Monday night by the ambulance taking Bartica boat racing champion Brandon Belle to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), remained unidentified up to press time last night.
Belle who was rushed to the city hospital on Monday night, following a motorcycle accident in his hometown, yesterday underwent a number of emergency surgeries to several parts of his body and to remove splinters from his brain.
Belle, 21, is currently listed as in a critical but stable condition in the High Dependency Unit of the hospital, where his parents remain at his bedside.
Belle was initially rushed to the Bartica Hospital from where he was transferred to the GPH. In the absence of a mercy flight, he was shuttled to Parika by boat late Monday from where an ambulance whisked him to GPH.
It was on this journey that the man was killed by the ambulance, somewhere in the vicinity of the village of Hague, West Coast Demerara. A relative of Belle informed that the ambulance travelling at a speed and with blaring sirens was too late to swerve from the man who staggered into its path. The man was picked up placed in the same ambulance, but succumbed before reaching the hospital. However up to press time he remained a ‘John Doe’ at the Lyken’s Funeral Home.
When this newspaper visited Belle at the GPH, he had just been brought out from the operating theatre, where he had undergone surgery for over six hours. His parents were keeping constant checks.
The man’s mother flew into the country yesterday morning from the United States, and this newspaper was told Belle had been scheduled to travel there on Friday. The accident was a shock to both of his parents. His father, Stephen Belle, recalled speaking to him a mere 25 minutes before the accident occurred.
And even as he took his son in for treatment, the senior Belle, suffering from hypertension, was also admitted to the hospital since on checking the doctors realized his blood pressure had skyrocketed. Yesterday afternoon, however, he remained calm as he recalled the events leading up to the accident involving his oldest son.
The family is currently weighing overseas medical options for the young man, but because of the nature of the head injuries he received air travel will depend on his post-surgery stabilization.
