-two lorry drivers arrested
Shortly after delivering a baby yesterday morning, prominent East Coast Demerara midwife Vivienne Abrams was fatally struck down by a truck on the Strathspey Railway Embankment Road as she was riding to Buxton to continue her labour of love.
The accident occurred shortly after 10am yesterday.
“I just spoke to her around 9 o clock and she had delivered a baby girl and was going to Buxton to do another job there… then as I was in the yard a man come running saying look your sister in accident up the road and I start running”, her sister Patsy Abrams, who lives a short distance from the scene, told Stabroek News.
“When I got there they had her in a taxi and the driver said come along leh we go. She was bleeding from her ears and nose and I know she was already dead but we rushed her to the hospital anyway…the people at the scene had already stolen her jewellery that she was wearing it’s so shameful” Abrams continued as she spoke from her dead sister’s 238 Section B, Non Pariel, ECD home.
An eyewitness related to Stabroek News that after hitting the woman off of her cycle the driver of the truck, owned by the Guyana Sugar Corporation, tried escaping but was stopped by public- spirited persons.
“This man knock nursey down by the bridge and gone speeding away in the truck but a brother from the church drive behind he and block him and we collect he and take he to the station”, the woman said.
The truck is currently parked about half a mile from where the woman was killed while the driver is in police custody assisting with investigations.
Vivienne Abrams, 59, had joined the medical fraternity from the age of 17 and had been District Midwife at the Melanie Health Centre for a number of years. She had retired in 2010 but continued to perform deliveries and offered her nursing services in a section of the lower flat of her home.
It was there she had earlier delivered a baby girl to Jasodra Mahendranauth of Foulis Housing Scheme.
Mahendranaught and her family were visibly shaken when they learnt of the woman’s death. “They aint too long come home and I calling the shop to ask for baby milk and telling the shopkeeper how nurse Abrams deliver her and she was home when they tell me nursey just just get in accident and my skin begin to grow…I still can’t believe it ”, the woman said.
Like that family, dozens of persons, mostly women, gathered both at the Vigilance police station and at the woman’s residence as word spread of her sudden demise, expressing shock.
Some could be heard reminiscing on the patience Abrams exhibited when attending to them and others wailed, lamenting that she will be dearly missed.
“That woman was so kind she didn’t just used to deliver baby she was like the village doctor but she never charge other than for delivery…if you sick you come to she and explain. All them children in this village know you could come to she when you sick”, Lolita Naught said.
The midwife was scheduled to leave Guyana to take up permanent residence in the United States with her children Michelle and Michael French and had an interview scheduled for today at the U.S. embassy.
Abrams was described as an ardent church member of the St. Mary’s The Virgin Anglican Church at Beterverwagting, ECD and gardener who was very passionate about her job.
She is survived by ten siblings along with her two children and grandchildren.
The police said in a release that investigations revealed that the driver of motor lorry GHH 5153 was overtaking motor lorry GFF 5112 and in the process struck down Abrams who was proceeding in the opposite direction.
The release said that Abrams was pronounced dead on arrival at the GPHC.
The drivers of the two motor vehicles are in police custody assisting with the investigations, the release added.
