A full term pregnant woman, trapped by rising flood waters, was yesterday rescued by a Guardian Media team and residents of St Helena Village, after waiting for over two hours in vain for help from the Regiment and the Office of the Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM).
Karma Jackson, 32, who is 40 weeks pregnant and is due to give birth tomorrow, had summoned help from the ODPM around 7 am yesterday. An official promised to return the call in five minutes but none came.
Her frantic husband, Akil, reached out to the Emergency Health Services for help.
Emergency management technicians Linford Lewis and Kerin Julien arrived on the scene within minutes but by then flood waters at Constantine Road, where the Jacksons resided, were almost five feet in depth.
No one could go in or out.
The EMTs were also called into action after James St Louis suffered a seizure and fell from a pick-up truck and slashed his head. He was trying to get out of a flooded area in El Carmen Village when the accident happened.
St Louis was taken to the nearby St Helena Health Centre for further treatment after his head was wrapped with bandages.
Most of the major rivers were overflowing after the passage of Tropical Storm Bret on Monday. With the high tide and more rains in the Northern Range, residents were bracing for more floods during the day and into last night.
A Guardian Media team covering the devastation after the Caroni River burst its banks shortly after 3 am yesterday, stopped to help out with the situation involving Jackson yesterday.
A call was made to Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young to use his influence to get the Regiment to respond.
A short while later, Col Roger Carter, the Operations Officer of the Defence Force, contacted the Guardian Media team asking for directions to the site.
He was unsure of how to access the area from the St Helena By-Pass Road, which was also flooded. By the time he called back, however, the patient had been rescued and was on her way to the hospital.
Contacted afterwards, Young said while he was disappointed by the lack of a timely response the case was an isolated incident. He said the authorities were responding to many emergency situations across the country. (See editorial on Page A20)
As the minutes wore on and there was no sign of the Regiment, villagers with the assistance of EMT Lewis hopped on a flat-bed truck and headed to Jackson’s home.
The truck driver navigated the narrow road to the house, located almost at the end of Constantine Road, where villagers, under the guidance of Lewis, assisted the patient onto the stretcher and lifted her on the truck.
“It is a long time she was lying in pain,” her husband said as he comforted his wife on the way out.
“I was trying to co-operate and help her relax but no help was coming,” he added.
The woman was subsequently taken to Mt Hope Women’s Hospital where she was warded.
The desperate cry for help was familiar from residents at Madras Road, El Carmen Village and St Helena.
Bobby Reesal, 52, of El Carmen Village, was blunt in his criticism.
“We expected the agencies, the ODPM, the army, coming out to assist the people some way or the other. We have seen nobody whatsoever. Last night the Disaster Management came in when we were totally marooned and they just gave us some sandbags. What could you do with sandbags at that point?” he asked.
Reesal said he was disappointed, since the ODPM had held a press conference saying they were ready and prepared to assist residents.
“Is better they had told us to fend for ourselves,” he said.
Reesal said yesterday’s disaster was the worst flooding he had seen in five decades.