30 MINUTES OF BLOODY HELL
No phone signal, little help, so St Thomas man bleeds out and succumbs to gunshot wounds
FOR half an hour, 29year-old Romaine Wright lay on the roadside in Swamp Road, St Thomas, after being shot twice by thugs about 8:20 pm last Wednesday.
The mother of his children stood over his body desperately making multiple calls to the police that never went through because of what she described as the poor phone signal history in the community. Despairingly, she hoped and prayed that she would’ve seen a taxi passing by, which isn’t the norm in the area.`
But against all odds, a taxi showed up about 8:50pm, the woman told the Jamaica Observer, and that’s how Wright was transported to Princess Margaret Hospital in Morant Bay. He was pronounced dead some time after 12:00 am on Thursday during surgery.
“All mi call 119 it wouldn’t ring. That affected the outcome. Him deh there long, long a bleed out. Long! And he was constantly saying wi must carry him guh a hospital. Him nuh stop talk until him guh inna the hospital. The bleeding, I think, helped to kill him. Probably him woulda live a couple more weeks or whatever, but him just bleed out with no assist[ance]. And nuff taxi nuh really drive up here, especially at that time after eight o’clock,” the woman, who requested anonymity, told the Sunday Observer Thursday morning.
The woman, who is the mother of Wright’s 11-yearold son and a three-year-old daughter, said the poor phone signal and weak cellphone reception have been recurrent in the community for several years.
“It was real, real bad. The signal up here is terrible. We don’t have any signal. We usually have to walk to a place further down the road called Lloyd’s to pick up signal. It is about a 20-minute walk from where I live. You have to go at a spot and hold up the phone. A just Whatsapp people mostly use up here. A taxi was passing and he dropped us at the police station, but while we were going down, the police were coming up.”
James Robertson, Member of Parliament (MP) for St Thomas Western, told the Sunday Observer that the poor signal challenge is indeed a problem plaguing the community in his constituency.
“It is a real issue,” he said, while calling for the media to help in alerting telecommunication providers Digicel and Flow, and the “relevant government agencies that should be monitoring their delivery of service”.
Whilst in the community, the Sunday Observer team tried making phone calls and sending messages via Whatsapp that failed to go through.
Further, one resident complained about the unbearably poor signal that haunts not only the community but other sections of the parish as well.
“This is what we are living like. We are the neglected people. We are the ‘back a bush’ people. It is a very good day when you can send out a call or get one. Don’t mek any emergency ketch yuh up in these parts, or dog nyam yuh supper. It is horrible,” the woman complained.
Elvis Burke, a returning resident, complained to the
Sunday Observer about the lack of development of the parish as a whole.
“This is our place. St Thomas a my place. I was born and raised in St Thomas and I am now living in America, but as often as I can be in Jamaica, I’m going to be here. We don’t really like what we are seeing in the place. We want to see more things happening in the place like what we are seeing in other areas.”
Wright’s common-law wife recalled the moments before the grim turn of events that she narrowly escaped.
“Me and him guh down the road and I came up and left him because mi did have something on the fire, and because him guh buy something,” she said.
“When I came up mi hear the shots and mi hear him call out mi name, and I realised that him get shot. Him call out my name when him get the shot and then after that, them give him a next shot,” she added in a sombre tone.
According to the Corporate Communications Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, “Twenty-nine-year-old Romaine Wright was apparently shot and killed by two armed men in the community. He was transported to the hospital where he died during surgery.”
The woman added that Wright had been living with her and their two children in the Swamp Road district for just a year.
“This is not where he is from. He is from Friendship Pen. He has been staying with me from last year,” she related, noting that the three-year-old girl has been rocked by the murder.
“The two of them have a very close relationship. Right now she is kinda traumatised about the situation. I left here since I was in grade two and I came back last year. Since I have been back I have heard shootings, but not regular.”
Meanwhile, Wright’s mother-in-law has also been left gutted. When the Sunday
Observer visited her home on Thursday, she sat outside on a stool, locked in a deep gaze.
“Is only one thing on my mind this morning, and that is my son-in-law weh dead last night,” she uttered.
“Him guh down the road last night with him babymother, who is my daughter, and it happen that I was in my room and I hear some gunshots. They sounded very close. I said to my son, ‘That nuh sound like clappers. That sound like gunshot.’ And that time mi never know seh a mi son-inlaw get shot. I don’t know what could cause that.”