Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Four peo­ple, be­lieved to be home­less, were rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, af­ter col­laps­ing on and near the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, froth­ing at the mouth.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that they re­ceived a re­port that the four had been poi­soned.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived at the scene be­tween Aber­crom­by and Cha­con Streets, po­lice of­fi­cers and emer­gency health of­fi­cials were at­tend­ing to the four—three men and a woman.

One woman, Michelle Bernard, who was pass­ing, told Guardian Me­dia she sought help for the woman af­ter she col­lapsed in her arms, but no one was will­ing to as­sist.

“I was pass­ing by Sub­way and I saw a young la­dy hold­ing on to her chest like she’s in a lot of pain and I end up ask­ing her if she’s okay and she col­lapsed in my arms. I opened Sub­way door and was beg­ging some­one to help me, which no one did.”

Bernard added that she stayed with the woman un­til help ar­rived. This, she said, hap­pened at 3.30 pm.

“I put the la­dy to sit down and she start­ed to froth a lot. Some­one even­tu­al­ly came and helped to put her on her side and I put her right hand un­der­neath her neck to sup­port her so her air­ways would be clear. I put her foot up and we wait­ed for the am­bu­lance, and (I was) count­ing how much time her chest rise and fall and that was ba­si­cal­ly it un­til the am­bu­lance came.”

Bernard said it was on­ly when the am­bu­lance ar­rived she re­alised there were three men on the prom­e­nade with the same symp­toms.

“When the am­bu­lance came, they came on the oth­er side to col­lect three oth­er guys that col­lapsed as well. I didn’t know three oth­er guys col­lapsed as well.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Don­na Cox were un­suc­cess­ful.