Two men collapsed and died in separate instances in Goedverwagting yesterday morning causing some amount of consternation among residents of the otherwise quite village.
Chabilal Narine, known as ‘Sugar’, 64, of Lot 32 Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara (ECD), died after making a purchase at a nearby shop while Ramnarine, 70, known as ‘Shrimp man’, of Lot 203 Better Hope, ECD, died while delivering shrimp to a customer.
When Stabroek News visited Ramnarine’s home, his wife Sharmila Ramnarine was overwhelmed with the news of her husband’s passing and wailed uncontrollably.
It was relayed by a friend close to the family that the man left his home around 8 am although his wife asked him not to, since he was not well.
“Meh tell he don’t go nowhere… he still quarrel with me to go. Why he gone and left me?” the woman lamented.
One woman who spoke with this newspaper indicated that she was expecting her delivery around 10 am and was in her yard when she noticed Ramnarine approaching on his bicycle. She noted that the man seemed wobbly and he lowered his head and looked as though he was falling forward. Within seconds, she said, the man fell from the bicycle and she rushed out to his assistance. By that time, other residents became aware and ran out, lifting the man to shade underneath the woman’s house.
The man’s sons were called and they managed to transport him to the Georgetown Hospital as he fell in and out of consciousness. It is unclear if Ramnarine died before arrival at the city hospital or during treatment.
His wife explained that the man suffered from high blood pressure, high sugar levels and heart complications. She said last month he was forced to go to the hospital, where he was admitted for two days.
Meanwhile, just a few houses away from the area where Ramnarine collapsed, Narine fell, dying almost instantly according to his daughter-in-law, Devi Persaud. She indicated that the man was left lying on the street for approximately 45 minutes as persons refused to lift his lifeless body to the house. Earlier in the morning, she said, she and her husband were awakened to the sound of Narine falling from his bed.
“This morning, this man fall out he bed around 5 o’ clock, he come down from the bed, get up and fall down and the door lock so I tell my husband go run and see what happen and he say he alright and he left lay down on the ground,” she said.
According to Persaud, after her husband left for work a while later, she prepared the old man’s breakfast and served him. She subsequently went to the market to purchase soup for him. While there, she further stated, owners of a nearby shop came and delivered the message that her father-in-law collapsed on the street.
“When I run now, I couldn’t hoist him and was just me and my two children them… when I reach there, he was helpless and I give him lil water cause he was panting for breath then he give two blow and that was it,” she recalled.
She stated that she raised an alarm but no one went to her assistance. Instead, she said, she had to wait for almost an hour for her husband to arrive and he managed to lift the body into the house. Police were called in and the body was transported to the Sandy’s Funeral Parlour.
Narine too suffered from high blood pressure. He was discharged from the hospital on Sunday last after spending a few days.
The men’s families found it strange that two men of the same age range died so suddenly under similar circumstances around the same time.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like hypertension, heart disease and diabetes are the leading cause of deaths both here and worldwide.
Just last September, Guyana was among Caricom nations that lobbied at the UN lifestyle diseases summit for trade police changes, which it is hoped would see a decrease in the statistics. Sixty-five per cent of all the deaths in the world are because of NCDs.
