SEVENTY-three-year-old, Oswald Andries of Morakabai Village, Mahaicony, who suffered head, neck and spinal injuries when he fell from the “landing” (verandah) of a two-flat building Tuesday last week, succumbed to his injuries early Tuesday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation(GPHC).Andrews who was at the time assisting a friend, Dookhu, also called “Chowmein” with minor construction works on his house, said he slipped and fell several feet below and landed heavily on his back.
Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Monday, the injured man recalled he suffered a hard blow and injured his back and chest; neck and both shoulders. Thereafter, he was unable to move his hands and feet, and complained of experiencing numbness in those limbs. A Computed Tomography (C-T) Scan was ordered, but it could not be ascertained whether the scan was done, but his neck was in a brace and he was being fed saline.
Andries, a father of five, at the time of his injury was also a widower, having lost his wife in June, 2009. He admitted that as a retired senior citizen, with only his pension to depend on, he was more than happy to take on the job of assisting to do construction work on his friend’s home so as to “catch his hand.”
When Andries fell, his friend “Chowmein” was on the scene, and picked him up and rushed him to the Mahaicony Cottage Hospital. He was later transferred to the GPHC where he spent exactly one week then succumbed.
Relatives were shocked beyond belief yesterday morning, when they visited and were informed that he had passed away just hours earlier.
Meanwhile; another patient who was assisting a relative with construction works to her house at Belle West on Sunday; also fell from the roof and sustained a fractured right hip. He is currently a patient at the Accident Ward of the GPHC.