RELATIVES and friends of an eighteen-year-old lad who had ingested a dangerous substance on May 11 last had prayed in earnest for his miraculous recovery; and, to God be the glory, their prayers have been answered! The lad has made a dramatic recovery.Today, Rameshwar Samaroo of Hope Estate, East Coast Demerara, who had ingested an undetermined quantity of gramoxone while on his father’s farm at Hope Backdam, has recovered favourably and was, on Monday, discharged from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

He is now happily reunited with his parents, Dasraj and Vidya Samaroo, and siblings: Navin, Bissoondai and Basmattie.

Family members, which had spent sleepless nights during Rameshwar’s period of hospitalisation at the GPHC following the ordeal, are overjoyed and are giving thanks to God and the doctors and staff at the GPHC for making his recovery possible. They had been in deep anguish as they huddled around his hospital bed and feared the worst, having been told that gramoxone has no antidote.

Initially, Rameshwar was vomiting up a black substance and was weak, listless and unable to speak, eat or drink. He was being fed intra-veinously. But as prayers continued to go up for him, the doctors acted through ‘divine inspiration’ and worked round the clock.

Within a few days, doctors began seeing visible signs of recovery. He was able to sit up in bed and begin communicating with persons around him, and gradually began taking fluids and a bland diet.

By the end of the week, he was doing better, and was discharged on Tuesday; but he would be carefully monitored for the first 21 days of the date of his ingesting the poisonous substance.

By Shirley Thomas