Evesham couple thankful to be alive

Her husband Lester was coming to visit, so the ward attendants placed Ruby Davis outside the female surgical ward of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital last Monday, June 29th.{{more}}

Her 17-year-old daughter Frinilla was also in attendance, assisting in making Ruby as comfortable as possible.

Ruby couldn’t help herself much!

Bandits shot her in the back during a robbery seven weeks ago; the 47-year-old woman is now paralyzed from her waist down.

Lester, who himself was shot on the right side of his chest during the incident, has limited movement in his right arm.

The couple, still coming to terms with what Lester describes as “the greatest tragedy in my life and in my family,” spoke to SEARCHLIGHT after rubbing his wife’s arm, asking her how she was doing and reassuringly saying: “It will be alright.”

Make no mistake, they are thankful to be alive – but they still ask ‘Why?’.

“I have never handed down anything that is evil to people,” Lester told SEARCHLIGHT.

The retired employee of St. Vincent Electricity Services Ltd told SEARCHLIGHT that the bandits didn’t just rob them of the $13,000 they had in the bag on that fateful night.

He explained that as hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses face them, all their life’s savings have been wiped out and now they have to depend on others to help them through.

According to his estimation, they are facing up to US$100,000 in medical expenses.

Lester has to travel to Trinidad every six months to monitor the artificial mechanism that was put in place to help with the blood flow through his right arm.

Meanwhile, Ruby faces the tough task of getting on her feet again.

Lester said that doctors have given them the hope that once her bruised spine is healed, the possibility exists that she may walk again.

“I am trying to cope, it is hard, but I am trying,” Ruby said.

For now, though, they have to be content with the involuntary movement that she experiences in her toes.

While Lester says that he has been trying to erase the memories of the incident from his mind, he was still willing to recall some of what transpired to SEARCHLIGHT.

Lester and his wife were dropped off at their home at around 8:45pm on May 15th, after they had closed their supermarket located at Lower Evesham.

Ruby was already on the porch when Lester said he saw two masked men running towards them.

Lester told SEARCHLIGHT that one of the men told him to hand over the money, while he (Lester) tried to block the entrance to the gate, to give his wife a chance to get inside the house.

“My concern was to protect her,” he explained.

“I felt something hard rest on my shoulder and heard the explosion, and then I just felt cold,” Lester said.

Meanwhile, the couple’s four-year-old grandson who had opened the front door for his grandmother, had run outside and knelt down on his fallen grandfather shouting “All yo kill my grandpa!”

Lester told SEARCHLIGHT that before he dropped to the ground he heard another shot.

“Oh God you kill her, too,” he remembered muttering.

He also said that in the midst of the tragedy which was unfolding, he distinctly heard one of the men say to the other, shortly after the second shot went off: “You didn’t suppose to do that.”

Ruby was shot in her back as she tried to retreat to the safety of her house and the bandits escaped with the loot, which represented a few days’ intake from the shop, the sale of lottery tickets and money from their farming enterprise.

“Sometimes it is really rough, but I am hopeful to walk again,” Ruby told SEARCHLIGHT, through the discomfort that she was experiencing in her back.

Some days are worse than others, she explained.

Now the Davises, who together have four children, who prided themselves on their independence and industrious nature, need help to see them through this medical challenge.

Persons who wish to help can contribute through the Lester Davis medical fund which has been set up at the First Caribbean Bank (Account number 30057738).

As she got ready to start one of her three-times-a-week physical therapy sessions, Ruby put the burden that she has been called upon to bear into perspective: “I am trying to deal with it because I don’t have any other choice.”

Meanwhile, Frinilla told SEARCHLIGHT that she is happy that her parents are still alive, and as she gets ready to go into the Upper Six at the Community College, she is more aware that life can be very short and must be cherished.