Quick thinking and level headedness on the part of porters at the Georgetown Public Hospital, yesterday saved a man from jumping to his death from the second floor of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Staff at the hospital said that the patient, Ronald Walcott had earlier in the afternoon gotten away from the ward and was found swimming in a drain outside the hospital kitchen.
He was picked up and taken back to Room 3 Male Surgical where he was a patient. However, he managed to escape out of the ward later in the afternoon and entered another room in the department where he painstakingly climbed onto a window sill and attempted to jump to the ground. Patients and visitors in the ward sounded an alarm and the porters rushed into the room and grabbed him just in time. By then, more than half his body, clad only in a white pamper was already out the window.
Appearing disappointed that the porters had prevented him taking the fatal jump, he threw himself onto the floor and began shouting ; “Ah want a gun; ah want a knife.”
Asked what he wanted to do with the gun and knife, he replied “A wan’ dead!” And asked why did he want to die, he somberly replied, “Is six days ah deh in dis place and can get a tablet to drink. I aint getting no treatment so I want dead,” he declared.
But staff at the institution claimed that this has been his second suicide attempt since being warded there. He was taken back to Room 3 Surgical where the nurses, with the assistance of porters and overseen by a doctor, restrained him to the bed since it was evident that he was going to head for a window again.
Walcott he was admitted for surgery had been in Room 3 Ssurgical for about six days, and according to he nurses, had attempted suicide twice and gotten away once.