Forced onto the streets but thankful for life

He wants to learn a skill in order to be a plumber or an electrician.

Thirty-two-year-old Brian Myers of Buccament Bay, who told journalists that he was forced onto the streets of Kingstown, wants to turn his life around.

The amputee said he is thankful for life, although his journey has been one of pain, suffering, frustration, bitterness, and hope in the Lord for deliverance from living on the streets.

Myers is often seen in Kingstown hobbling along, eking out a living from the scraps thrown at him; a living victim of one of the country’s many incidents of gun-related violence, which resulted in his left leg being amputated.

In an interview last week with NBC Radio and SEARCHLIGHT, on the grounds of the former public library, Myers disclosed that five bullets were fired at him in a 2010 incident, by persons whom he alleges robbed him of money and other belongings.

He recalled that his troubles began on September, 21, 2003, when the board house at Buccament Bay, in which he and his brother had been raised, burned down. At the time, he was a 12-year-old first former at the Intermediate High School.

As a result of the fire, he went to live with relatives. But a few years later, while in fifth form, he dropped out of school to look for work. He returned to school a few months later, but circumstances forced him to forego his education and seek employment to take care of himself and to help his mother.

His mother Thecla Myers died in 2013, a few months before the December 2013 floods which ravaged St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). His father had left for the United States when he was a six-month-old baby.

Myers said the bullets that hit him in the 2010 shooting incident broke his leg and caused him to lose a lot of blood. Doctors informed him that he would need blood donors in order to conduct the operation and save his leg, which was experiencing poor circulation from the low blood count.

His rare blood type – AB-positive, made it nearly impossible to get suitable donors, but when he did, it was too late. “I got the blood too late and there was no circulation in the foot,” explained Myers, adding that due to poor circulation his toes turned black in colour.

With his damaged left leg becoming darker in colour, the decision was made to first amputate his lower leg in September 2010, he being about 20 years old at the time. Weeks later, a blood clot formed which caused a second amputation higher up, which he said affected him mentally and physically.

“I was bitter. I wanted to accept it at that time and tried to leave it up to God, but I was bitter.”

However he learned to cope with it, saying “If you cannot accept your losses and turn to God, you will become crazy. It was a big loss, for you cannot be young and lose a limb and be happy.

The receipt of an artificial limb from a charitable organization based in Baltimore Maryland improved his mobility and gave him a bit of hope, “but being disabled and young did not make me happy.”

Myers said in 2012, he tried to obtain a visa to travel to the United States, following a telephone discussion with his father.

With financial help from others, he secured the necessary documentation including a passport and a plane ticket to travel to Barbados for the interview at the US Embassy in September 2012.

His quest for a visa was not successful, increasing his resentment.

“I cried,” recalled Myers. “I almost went crazy calling out to God to have mercy on me.”

He said his misery got worse one night, as he lay asleep on the steps of a Kingstown business house. He was robbed of his bag which contained his passport, phone, and other possessions.

He has few clothes to wear and is forced to beg just to buy the basics such as underwear, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, “for I want to be able to bathe every day, to change my clothes every day, but that is not happening.”

Myers is pleading for assistance so that he can learn a skill and become self sufficient.

He is also pleading with the government to secure funding to construct a home for those persons who are homeless, for many of them are in their current situation through no fault of their own.