Brush cutter operators will blind people one of these days

Sep 01, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
On Sunday August 28, 2016 at around 2:00 PM, my mom and sister were caught in a most unpleasant and dumbfounding predicament. My sister was at the wheel, heading to Sheriff Street travelling west on Campbell avenue. At the junction of Campbell Avenue and Stone Avenue the passenger side window was shattered by an explosive force that impaled my mom’s left arm and leg with countless shards of tempered glass. The inside of the vehicle was sprayed with these fragments, I figure the only reason why her eyes were not damaged, was because she had on glasses.
You see, a man was using one of those gas-powered brush cutters and was slashing in such an irresponsible manner in front of a residence that pebbles were being flung indiscriminately in all directions. This happens every day all over Georgetown! The fact that we do not have a bunch of one-eyed people walking around Georgetown is truly a miracle.
When my sister and mom emerged (by this time her left arm and leg were streaking with blood) the man refused to take responsibility and declared that my sister should have seen him Words cannot describe what an utter asinine and degenerate idiot an individual has to be to spew such garbage!
By this time a crowd was gathering and began hurling insults at my mom and sister. I will call a spade a spade because this is the blatant truth. It was a group of women of a certain against two persons of another type – plain and simple. I don’t care how you turn and twist it, racism is alive and kicking in certain parts of this country and I will be fair and say that it goes both ways. I cannot fathom women, seeing other women in a predicament and instead of assisting chose to abuse and ridicule. One woman even came out with a piece of wood in a threatening manner.
During the ensuing gutter behavior by the all-female gang, the culprit slipped away. Someone was seen assisting with stashing his brush cutter. My sister went to the gate of the residence and asked to speak to the owner in an effort to get the name of individual; after all it was the owner that would have hired the man. Well, the owner came out swinging and let loose a barrage of Fs and Ss on her and kept advancing to within feet of her. Two women had the devil’s time restraining him.
So, I called a policeman that I knew and explained the situation; he was blunt and matter-of-fact, and advised that we should just let it go, go home and try to forget about it as these incidents play out more often than one would imagine, and nothing ever comes of it. He said that trying to pursue the matter will stress us out more than anything and in the end we will still be burdened with the expense.
I value his advice, but feel such a sense of loss and disappointment with the “new normal” that we are forced to accept. A few years ago on Camp Street outside of the Georgetown Club, my left side window was shattered by a brush cutter. It cost me $74,000 to replace it. I never got a cent in compensation. Early last year, a co-worker of mine had his window shattered in similar fashion; he never located the culprit, even though we established that the person worked for the Ministry of Public Works.
It is only a matter of time until someone is blinded by these reckless operators, but I guess the excuse would be that the person should have seen it coming. By the way, my sister is one of the leading pediatric surgeons in the Caribbean and is an accomplished cardiac surgeon as well. I wonder what the world would look like if persons like her decide to discriminate by race, creed or class when operating to save a life.
And as a further note, the owner who employed the cutter and the rest of the idiots if they are reading this letter…that is, if they can read, she is married to an African man. You don’t just jump and hate a person because they are from a different culture from you. I understand the whole “this is we time now” mantra that people like those within the gang like to sing, but this will get us nowhere fast and you never know when you might be forced to depend on the same person to save you.
Stanton Seepersaud M.Sc.; B.Sc.

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