HE may be differently abled, but he’s proven time and again that he’s as much of a man as anyone else where earning his keep is concerned.
He sews, he farms and does just about anything he sets his mind to, all with just one leg. As he told the Guyana Chronicle, it is by far harder sitting on the road and begging than doing something to earn an honest living.
It’s not the kind of life that André Richards had envisaged for himself, but as is the old saying, we may very well have control of the script, but the pen is not always in our hands.
Casting his mind back to that fateful day back in September 1989, Richards, now 53, said he’d gotten up as usual that morning and prepared to head off to work. At the time, he was working at GUYMINE (Guyana Mining Enterprise Limited) in the Production Department.
He’d eaten breakfast, kissed his young reputed wife and three-month-old daughter goodbye, jumped on his bicycle and rode off to work. Little did he know that he would be returning home five weeks later with just one good leg and a stump.
As he raised his eyes to watch the sunlight beaming through his roof, it’s as if that ray of light took him back to the day he stared death in the face.
“I was sent to clean this chain,” he recalled. “And after I finish, the guy that was with me tell me let me come out. And whilst coming out, my foot like it get trap in this chain; and this chain pass me through a wall.
“So, as it keep going through, it keep crushing,” he said somewhat calmly, as if trying to suppress the memory of the excruciating pain he’d had to endure.
“This thing happen from like 11:15am; and I was there until after 2pm. And this man, George Marshall from the Ward, he cut off my foot with a knife, because, is like I’m over here and my foot is over there through a wall, so that was the only hope to save my life.” He was just 25, mind you!
And as he laid there, waiting on the doctor, it suddenly hit him how, in just a few short minutes, his life was forever changed.
“I just accepted it just like that, even though I was a young man! And so I said, ‘It done gone! What ah gon’ do!’”
After being hospitalised for over a month, he went back out to work, as he realised he still had mouths to feed. And GUYMINE was kind enough to take him back and transfer him to the Electrical Department, where he would work until 2004, when the company was privatised. He was also given a house in the Constabulary Compound, where he still lives, and $50,000 as compensation. To date he still receives $4,000 from the National Insurance Scheme.
A ROUGH YEAR
In retrospect, 1989 was not at all a good year for him, as, mere months before he lost his foot, he lost his father. He also lost his sister whilst he was hospitalised. Seeing him near death’s door had raised her blood pressure; she never made it out of the hospital alive. His mother also came to visit and ended up being hospitalised after seeing the state of two of her children.
“Only me alone come out alive!” he said. “Only me alone come through the front door! All the rest went through the back!
“I get released the 14th from the hospital; my sister died the 19th of November. And my mother died the December.”
In spite of all that transpired, Richards has fathered four children. And with the innate desire to provide for his family, he decided, as they say in Creolese, “to get up and get”.
That’s how he came to land a job with the D&I (drainage and irrigation) team that cleans the drains and parapets all across Linden.
“I work with the crutches,” he said, in anticipation of the perplexity his revelation may have caused. But as he explained, cleaning drains and ditches is way easier than sewing shopping bags, which he makes from discarded “salt bags”, as they’re called here. And, in spite of the akwardness, he makes a minimum of four dozen per day, using a standard pedal sewing machine.
“My foot has to press the machine down there, but it doesn’t bother me,” Richards said, adding:
“I am making the bags since 1992. My wife did it first, and then I took over from her when we separated in 2004. And I continued doing it.”
But that’s not all! When he’s done sewing the bags, he hops on his bicycle and delivers them to his clients at the Mackenzie Market!
“I get my raw material from sugar bags or flour bags; or from the Water Plant,” he said. “I would come home and wash them; I am accustomed to it. Plus I does do my li’l farming in the yard.”

Think he’s done there! Then think again! Much to everyone’s surprise, Richards is also a distance runner and participated in three marathons in New York City, emerging on each occasion the winner for those who were differently abled.
“I ran the marathon three times!” he boasted. “I did it in 2004, 2005 and 2006! I also did walk races in the whole of Guyana with my crutches. And every year, I participate in the ‘Women on the Move’ cancer walk.”

MENTORSHIP
After showcasing such insurmountable strength, Richards now uses the opportunity to mentor and encourage others who may suddenly become differently abled and may be thinking of giving up on life.
He goes to the hospital from time to time to share his experiences, and to encourage others in a similar situation to look to the future positively. “I tell them one thing: ‘Once there is life, there is hope. You have to build a mind; that this is not the end of it.’”
Richards now lives alone, and despite he may not be where he wants to be in life, he is happy he endured all the trials, and was able to overcome and become a testimony. He believes he survived the ordeal because he has a purpose in life, but often wonders whether he is fulfilling that purpose.
He said, however, that he is at peace with himself, and he is quite able, but just does so differently.