The two Lindeners who were transferred from the Linden Hospital to the Georgetown Public Hospital for further treatment after being shot by police have been admitted and are both said to be in stable condition.
Reuben Bowen, 56, of 27 Silver City, and Collis Duke, 26, of 768 South Amelia’s Ward are both patients of the city hospital but have not had the bullets removed.
Bowen’s wife, Fabeia Bowen, yesterday told Stabroek News that her husband was taken to the theatre on Thursday evening to have the bullet removed from his left knee.
She said he was eventually told that the bullet can not be taken out since it is lodged in the bone. “They did not put Plaster of Paris or anything on it,” she added.
Meanwhile, the woman noted that Duke was not taken in for surgery as yet. She pointed out that he was shot three times, including once to the left side of his face. When this newspaper approached Duke’s relatives at the hospital on Thursday, they had indicated their unwillingness to speak. “Wa it gon do? Putting anything in the paper won’t do anything. The police done do what they had to do,” one woman said.
Bowen’s wife had alleged that after he was shot, ranks attempted to assault him.
“When he get shoot and fall down in the bush, the police go fuh beat he with a wood when he tell them that he get shoot,” she had said.
The woman told this newspaper that her husband contacted her with the use of his cell phone and informed her of his location. By the time she got there, she recalled, persons had assisted in taking the injured man to the Mackenzie Hospital.
Three persons were killed on Wednesday and several injured after police opened fire on protesters at the Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge participating in a protest over the recent hike in the electricity tariff in the town.
The police have said that they had to resort to using tear gas and they later fired shotgun cartridges, after missiles were hurled at them by protestors—an account that some of the injured continued to challenge. Hospital officials also confirmed to Stabroek News that some of those injured were hit by live rounds and others by pellets.
