Man paralyzed after plunge

Sep 16, 2015 News

A fun trip to the Kwakwani fair has left a mother seeking public help for her son to get medical attention overseas. The young man made a treacherous plunge that has left him paralyzed.
Prior to the August 24 trip, Canje Berbice resident Dimeon Deodharry, 20, was a normal active youth assisting his mother to make ends meet. But as fate would have it he opted to go for a swim in one of the waterways at Kwakwani after missing transportation. He hit his head and now he is paralyzed from the neck down.
“The doctors say a bone break at the back of the neck and they were supposed to do the surgery here but they can’t do it anymore because the spinal cord could get cut and that would be the end of him,” Ravina Pirtan, the mother, said.
The youth is confined to a bed in the Georgetown Public Hospital unable to move any part of his body below his neck.
“I am not giving up on my son and while the doctors here are unsure of what to do with him, I’m asking for some public help to take him to Trinidad to see if they can do the surgery,” the mother said.
The mother said that they left their accommodation in Plaisance to sell items at a trade fair in Kwakwani and all seemed well. “The fair was nice but after the fair finish the next day we miss the bus and so he decided to pass time by going for a swim.”
An hour later the mother got a message that her son was injured and that she needed to report to the Kwakwani Health Center. “When I go to the hospital they said he plunged and knocked his head.”

Ravina Pirtan with her son Dimeon Deodharry

Based on reports from witnesses he hit his head and landed in the water. But no one at the scene realized that the hit was so hard that he had lost consciousness. He had plunged many times before but this time he was not that lucky. Amidst the fun and aquatic and gymnastics his body went under. Another youth who was swimming touched Deodharry’s body which was under the water but he swam away with the belief that Deodharry was diving.
He went under for a good while, then other swimmers exclaimed that unless he is a fish something has to be wrong.
The guy who jam him in the water earlier plunged back in, grabbed the motionless body of the youth and pulled him ashore. Efforts were made to revive the youth on spot but he had swallowed a lot of water.
Luckily the fair coordinator was on spot and the injured youth was transported to the Kwakwani medical centre. By some miracle he was revived but they soon realized that all was not well. He could not move any of his limbs from the neck down, and a decision was made for him to be transferred to the Linden hospital but not much could have been done for him there, and he was eventually referred to the Georgetown Hospital where he remains to date.
The youth who often helped his mother sell toys to make ends meet is one of seven siblings. While he was alert following the incident he is confined to the hospital bed with clamps to his head.
The mother’s contact number is 658-3507.