MAHAN Sukuu, also called ‘Vickram’, whose right lower leg was amputated following a hit-and-run accident on the Mon Repos Public Road, ECD in 2009, is seeking financial help to raise the sum of $160,000 to acquire a prosthetic leg replacement, to be assembled by the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre in Carmichael Street, Georgetown.   The 28-year-old Mon Repos resident was pedal cycling east along the public road on April 27, 2009 when, at approximately 17:00 hrs, he was struck by motor lorry GLL 7130 as it attempted to ‘undertake’ a minibus (pass the bus on its left side).  

The truck ran over Sukhu’s right foot, crushing the instep. The injured man was rushed to the Accident and Emergency Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) in a critical condition.  X-Rays revealed he had suffered multiple fractures. He was admitted to that institution, and remained warded for more than two months, before being discharged on June 16.

In the ensuing months, he was readmitted several times for several surgeries done to the foot, but because of loss of blood circulation, his leg had to be amputated in September 2011. It was cut a few centimetres below the knee.

However, follow-up evaluation was done at the Orthopedic Outpatient Department of the GPHC and at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre for a prosthetic leg replacement.

Sukhu said the driver of the truck was identified as Noel McPherson, and the owner as Zahir Sheriff, a businessman of West Coast Berbice.

The matter had been called in the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court, East Coast Demerara; but, two months before the start of trial, the investigating police rank, Constable Nazir of Beterverwagting, died, thus the case was dismissed by the magistrate.

The injured Sukhu recalled that the businessman and his driver refused to accept liability for the accident, and the company that had insured the lorry maintained that there was nothing they could do. Significantly, at no time did either the lorry driver or its owner ever visit the injured man while he had been hospitalized for several months.

Asked if he had ever been offered any financial help, Sukhu replied: “Not a single cent.”

“They never even gave me as much as an orange,”  he contended, saying he had learnt that the businessman had, sometime last year, taken ill with a stroke and is now bedridden.

At the time of the accident, Sukhu had been a certified heavy equipment (excavator) operator, working with a gold mining company at Puruni, Region 7. He had come home to spend time with his family just three days prior to the accident.

But that was perhaps just the beginning of his sorrows, since, a few months later, his six-year-old son succumbed after a period of illness.

It is now four years since Sukhu has been unable to work as a result of the injury he suffered. He said that although he is willing to do something to maintain his wife and their two children (an 8-year-old girl and a six-month-old baby boy), he is constrained because of his amputation, and is consequently financially embarrassed whilst his expenses continue to grow.

He is desperately appealing to the generous nature of his fellow Guyanese at home and abroad for assistance in cash or kind to help make ends meet. Persons wishing to help in this worthy cause can contact Mahan Sukhu on phone number: 666-6591. His address is 44/45 Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara.