AT 05:00AM, just when 26-year-old motor cyclist Otto Pitman thought that the roads in Georgetown would have been easy to navigate and safe to ride, he was proven wrong. He was hit by the driver of a motorcar who was reportedly swerving to avoid a pot hole and slammed him against a lamp post and he landed in a nearby drain, crushing his right leg.

Within the next few days, his leg was amputated. Crippled for the rest of his life, all his hopes, dreams and aspirations have been rudely dashed and still he has to undergo radical changes.
But through it all, even as he battles to bear the excruciating pains, tempered only by shots of morphine, Otto is thanking God for sparing his life.
At 05:00hrs. On Sunday, March 1, as Otto Pitman of La Grange, West Bank Demerara was returning home after spending the night in Georgetown, he was somewhere in the vicinity of D’Urban and High Streets, when he was unexpectedly hit by a motorcar and slammed against a lamp post. He ended up in a drain with water at the roadside, his right leg badly crushed and bleeding and with abrasions to other body parts.
The car which was approaching from behind him, had swerved to avoid a water-filled pot hole and slammed into him.
Struggling to endure the agony as he lay on his hospital bed on Wednesday, the injured man recalled that around 05:00hrs that Sunday morning, he was riding his Honda 125cc motorcycle on his way home when the accident happened.
As his body connected with the lamp post, he landed in a drain, with his leg badly crushed and bleeding profusely. There he remained helpless and unable to move for some time.
Fortunately, a few moments later a truck drove up and on it was some of his friends with whom he worked in the gold mining interior. They stopped to offer assistance, and to their horror, found that it was their workmate.
It is not known how many times he might have ‘blacked out’ while in the drain, but before his friends arrived on the scene, Pitman’s bike, along with his wallet containing cash and his cellular phone, had all gone.
He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and on Sunday night was taken to theatre where the leg was operated on. Pitman said he was taken to Woodlands Hospital where a Computed Tomography (CT) Scan was done, but the results showed that considerable nerve damage had been done, making the chances for recovery of the leg negligible.
Over the next few hours, the leg remained without feelings, and within a few days it had become infected. The doctors were forced to take a decision to amputate the leg, in order to save his life. By Thursday, the amputation was done and he was accommodated in the recovery ward before being taken to the open ward which he finds an altogether new experience, and where he is struggling each day to deal with persistent and excruciating pains, Pitman says.

By Shirley Thomas