MEMBERS of a family are keeping their fingers crossed and praying for the best, while another family is preparing to ascend the court stairs to answer the charge of attempted murder.

This follows the beating of 48-year-old Terry Persaud, a handyman of Meten-Meer-Zorg on the West Coast of Demerara. According to relatives, Persaud was beaten to his face by a man and his sister and was also struck to the head with a piece wood. It is the blow to the head that reportedly caused him to now be hospitalised in a critical condition and on life support at the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Monday, Chandroutie Singh, the man’s sister, explained that she was home when she received a call from a younger relative last Wednesday that she should come up the road quickly, that Persaud was lying on the road and appeared to be dead. “When I reach he actually lay down bleeding from his ears and nose and I put him in a car and take him to the hospital. I took him to [Leonora] Cottage Hospital then West Demerara Hospital and then they transferred him to Georgetown Hospital,” the woman indicated.

According to Singh, after hours at the hospital, she left and returned to West Demerara where she visited the Leonora Police Station. There she met the persons who had allegedly beaten her brother and who indicated that they were going to pay for the CT scan for the man.

Singh said that he informed them that she was not there to deal with that, but rather the police aspect of things. Upon her return to the hospital on Thursday, the woman said that relatives were informed that Terry Persaud suffered a broken jaw, a fractured neck and fractured skull; the latter two injuries are suspected to have been caused by the cuff to his face by the male suspect and the lash to his head by the suspect’s sister.

The distraught sister continued as she pointed out that her brother was hooked up to a number of machines, had wires all over him and was covered with a sheet. She said that from the moment he was picked up and rushed to the hospital to the time she spoke with this newspaper on Monday, her brother has been unresponsive and on the life support machine.

According to reports, on Monday the suspects’ relatives attempted to remove Terry from the Georgetown Public Hospital and have him sent to a private hospital, but doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital reportedly denied that request. Relatives said that doctors told them that the man “was waiting on his time.”

Chandroutie Singh related that based on her knowledge, her brother, who works as a handyman has no issues with anyone in the village and she is still at a loss to understand why her brother was a target for the family that attacked him.

Meanwhile, a woman who is likely to be the main witness in this matter, Waveney, told the Guyana Chronicle that she saw everything that happened as she was sitting on her verandah. According to the elderly woman, she saw a man whose name she gave as Robin, beating Persaud with what appeared to be a dog chain. The victim’s relatives reportedly accosted the aggressor and took Persaud away from the area to sit and catch himself.

However, when they were walking back to head home, as they passed Robin’s home, Robin again came out of his yard and began cuffing Persaud to his face and then his sister joined in and came out with a piece of wood and lashed Persaud repeatedly to the head; Persaud, she said, then fell to the ground bleeding.

At that point, the mother of the two aggressors emerged from her yard with a bucket of water to throw on the unresponsive man, but Waveney objected, stating that the man could be suffocated by the water.

When contacted on Monday, Divisional Commander, Senior Superintendent Edmond Cooper confirmed the incident and stated that the two persons are being processed for court and that they are likely to be charged with attempted murder. The senior police officer indicated that the piece of wood used to lash Persaud is lodged with the police as evidence.