A second chance at life
Sentara with three of the guys who risked their lives to save hers
Sentara with three of the guys who risked their lives to save hers

How good Samaritans saved this young woman’s life

 

THE tears kept dripping down her face; she could not hold them back. A vicious attack by bees earlier this month could have claimed her life. But recalling the ordeal was not what made her emotional. Rather, it was as a result of reflecting on the diligent effort by four brave young men who risked their lives to save hers.

Sentara Alleyne wasn’t the only one crying as she told the story of that fateful Thursday. Her mom, Olivia Alleyne, was also up in tears as she related that she would have been telling quite a different story today, had the men not fight to save her daughter.
The 20-year-old, of Victoria Village, East Coast Demerara, was reading water meters on January 3 in the Foulis/Enmore area on the East Coast Demerara, as part of her work assignment with the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI).

She had just completed those meters to the back of the villages and was on her way out to complete a few along the Enmore Public Road.
A cow passed her and she saw what appeared to be a fly following him, so she took it for nothing. Before she knew it, though, a swarm of bees began swirling around her head and the rest of her body. “Anyone would hear a swarm of bees coming and move out of the way. But I did not hear anything. They just appeared on me. They came out of nowhere.”
Sentara ran for her life. Thinking that the gas station close by might be able to get rid of the bees, she headed for there. But help was unavailable at this end. “I was confused. I heard someone shouting ‘jump overboard.’ I dropped my bag and all my other belongings.”
The bees would not leave Sentara though. Even as she was running and trying to fight them off, they continued biting her. All along, she was screaming.

Two of the guys drove up to her and told her to take a dip in the gutter close by. It was full of muddy water, but Sentara had no other choice. She dipped two times in the water and finally got the bees off of her. The guys told her to run in a yard after coming out of the gutter.

Sentara recalled thinking that there was something abnormal about what was happening to her because as she got into the yard, the bees all returned on her, despite other people were around. They went to no one else, but her.

It was then that one of the guys left his home without a shirt and with a Baygon in hand. The Baygon did little to fight off the bees though. “The guys burst a netting from their house and told me to cover myself but how the bees were so much, I couldn’t get underneath. The guy burst another netting and fit himself under and tried to fit me under,” Sentara recalled.

The area where Sentara was attacked and forced to take cover in the gutter

“When I got under the net, the bees started stinging him from the outside but they were still trying to get towards me. The guy told the other three to spray the extinguisher, they threw gas on me but the bees would not leave. More kept coming. I don’t know where they got the fire extinguishers from but they started to spray the bees and throw gas. The bees started to leave and die out.”

On her way to the hospital, Sentara realised that she was allergic to bees. She started losing breath, wheezing, and vomiting. By this time, all over her body was swollen.
Fortunately, she made it in time at the Woodlands Hospital where she started to recover after spending two days and two nights there.

Sentara said she cannot thank the guys Brian Pleto, Naresh Persaud, Vedish Persaud, and Suresh Etwaroo, enough for saving her life.

OUR BROTHERS’ KEEPER

Mrs. Alleyne said the bees were so many on her daughter that the guys could not see her hair and face at one point. “One of them said he put his hand on her face and tried to pull down the bees from her face. He said he never heard such a scream, begging them not to let her die there.”

She said the guys did not give up on her daughter but fought to save her life, and that this story proves that racism is not as big of a problem that some people make it out to be in Guyana. Of the four men who helped Sentara, three were East Indians and one was of Indigenous descent.

“A newspaper article said the other day that racism in Guyana is more dangerous than in Venezuela. But we are our brothers’ keeper in this country. I’m not refuting that we have racism in Guyana, but if you look around this country, we are still our brothers’ keeper,” Mrs. Alleyne expressed.

In the past, she said the typical reaction by onlookers is to move away from someone affected by bees. In this case, however, the guys ran towards the young woman. “If they had left my daughter there…One of them got about 20 stings and he was allergic to bees too but he still did not leave her,” Mrs. Alleyne said in tears.

“Had they leave my daughter that day, hey, oh…the guy said it seemed like a million bees on her because you couldn’t see her hair, her face, her back. Had they leave her there…they did not leave her. We do have heroes in Guyana. Those guys are heroes,” she added.
Mrs. Alleyne said they were modest too, as they told her that Sentara being alive was enough for them, as far as a reward was concerned.

COEXISTING

Mrs. Alleyne recalled that when she was about 15 years old, an Indian guy fell in love with her and told his mom that he was going to marry me. When the mother heard that, she sent the young man away to Canada.

“Now, are you seeing things like that? You are seeing such relationships all over the country. You’re seeing different races coexisting together. We look out for one another in this country. They could’ve left my daughter there and said she is a black girl.”

Mrs. Alleyne believes that racism is not as prominent as some make it out to be in Guyana. “What they did was out of this world. They went out of their way. They took bites too.”
She plans on getting her daughter some counselling as the young woman is evidently still traumatised by the event.

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