A 45-year-old Sheet Anchor, Berbice fisherman is in a critical condition at the New Amsterdam Hos-pital after he was stabbed in the neck allegedly by his wife during a drunken squabble on Friday night.
Daniel Persaud of Lot 99 Sheet Anchor Village, East Canje, Berbice was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the medical institution while police yesterday combed the savannahs for his reputed wife Dianne McCalmon. She was eventually apprehended and is expected to be charged.
The stabbing incident occurred at around 8.15pm on Saturday and was reportedly witnessed by the couple’s four children, who neighbours say, are often neglected. According to reports, Persaud and McCalmon were on their veranda imbibing alcohol as is their norm, when for unknown reasons, McCalmon armed herself with a kitchen knife and stabbed Persaud in the neck before fleeing the house. The knife was lodged between Persaud’s neck and left shoulder blade. He was rushed to the hospital by his brother Abdul Rahaman Sattaur.
“Just after 8pm I go upstairs and was preparing for bed when I hear one hollering and my wife just push through she head out the window and somebody tell she how Dianne just bore me brother in his neck,” Sattaur related. The man said he immediately made his way to his brother’s house next door and noticed that a few villagers were running in pursuit of the alleged attacker. “The villagers run fuh ketch she but by the place dark, they frighten she get cutlass and chop them, so they abandon the search,” Sattaur said.
Shortly after, the taxi that was summoned, arrived, and Persaud was rushed to the hospital. “When we took him, they [the nurses] say let us hold his hand so he won’t move it or try to take out the knife and he had the alcohol in his system so we had to really hold him down,” Sattaur recalled. It took several hours for doctors to remove the knife and stop the profuse bleeding. Persaud was admitted to the ICU.
Yesterday, over one dozen police ranks, acting on information received, began to comb the savannahs for McCalmon. Even-tually, a few hours after, she was found and apprehended. She is expected to be placed before the court today.
Regular domestic squabbles
Sattaur expressed surprise that the night’s sporting escalated to the point where his brother was injured. “They were just drinking, there wasn’t any argument or anything,” he said. The man related that Persaud and McCalmon “does get lil-lil problems and them does drink and it does create more problems.” He said that this has been going on for years. “Nuff time I tell them so long as a murder ain’t happen yall not gone stop,” he recounted.
Sattaur also articulated that both his brother and McCalmon needed help with their alcohol addiction. “Late at night I does have to wake up and holler on them because they drinking, fighting and making noise,” he lamented. “She [McCalmon] does cuss up, take cutlass and chop here and there. And in the morning when I talk to her, is like she has no memory of what she did the night before,” he added.
Since the incident, neighbours have begun to speak out and express their concern over the wellbeing of the children.
Persaud and McCalmon’s relationship produced four children: three boys and one girl, between the ages of five and 13 years. One resident stated that the children are usually left to fend for themselves while both parents consume alcohol.
Another resident said that it is history repeating itself as McCalmon’s mother was an alcoholic who abandoned her children (McCalmon included) when they were pre-teens. McCalmon and her siblings were split up and raised by various neighbours and a series of distant relatives.
Neighbours are afraid that the same fate may befall McCalmon’s children. However, Sattaur believes it may be better if they are made wards of the government. “If me get them social worker number, all like how they does deh drinking rum all the time and none of them children does go school, me would call and let them come collect them and let all of them move from here,” he declared.
He said that the children sporadically attend school and are rarely supervised by their parents when at home. Moreover, it is the eldest son – aged 13 – who undertakes the task of caring for his younger siblings while his parents drink themselves into a stupor. “Me does sorry for them, because is like they raising themselves,” Sattaur said sadly.
Presently, the children are home alone.
