A porter attached to the New Amsterdam Hospital was discovered dead, in his yard filled with overgrown grass at an area called ‘the track,’ in the Mayor and Town Council Scheme, New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Forty-year-old Shawn Adams called ‘Baccoo’ was discovered by his wife Trishelle, just after 5 am when she opened the front window and saw his bicycle lying across the entrance to their home.
Speaking to this newspaper, she recounted, “I woke the [three] children and I told Shamini, the eldest girl, to bring my phone, and we all hurried outside. I then saw him lying just off the wooden walkway. I call he …Shawn! Shawn! This is wha you do me… I get stupid… I did not know what really to do… I then ran to the neighbours and I tell them to come and see what happen… I did not even check to see what I had on … O God! This is hard,” she lamented.
The widow said her husband is a chronic alcoholic and the doctor had stopped him from drinking. “The doctor told him, if he only continue drinking he would die… But he ain’t hearing. He still does go and drink,” she lamented.
However despite her husband’s self-destructive habit, she fondly recalled his love and commitment to his family.
“He would clean my working shoes, iron my security uniform, and take my bathing water to the bathroom. When I was sick and had to undergo a surgery, he was very supportive. He would take me to work daily, even if he is under the influence of alcohol. He never slept out. I could not want a better husband. No one is perfect. He was a slave to alcohol, but he cared for me and the children,” she said.
Trishelle Adams recalled seeing her husband on Sunday during the New Amsterdam Independence float parade.
“I had left him at home, after he complained of not feeling well. Later in the afternoon, I saw him on the street. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going up the road. I also asked him if he had put up the generator, from where electricity was sourced, and he replied yes,” she said.
When she returned home, Adams said, she and her three minor children went to bed. But she awakened at midnight and noticed that her husband had, strangely, not returned home.
She then, called on their 14-year-old daughter to check her cell phone to see whether there were any missed calls.
She explained to the media that her husband had a health condition and would sometimes be taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he would be given saline, before being released hours later. On those occasions, persons would telephone, informing the family of his whereabouts.
However, after not seeing any missed call, she exclaimed ‘No news is good news,’ before returning to bed, only to awaken hours later to find her husband of 15 years partially submerged in the waterlogged, weed infested yard.
It is assumed that Shawn Adams’ feet may have slipped, as he navigated along the wooden passage leading to his home.
His body was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. A post-mortem examination is scheduled for today.
