Gya: Pray God you never get hurt in Guyana

Here's an excerpt from a story about a young man who was shot trying to protect his girl friend from a robber. The friend, Shani Achee, tried to get help for Sean Narain who'd been shot in his lower abdomen.

"I was panicked. I didn't know what to do. I ran to the road and made a phone call to the police station. I told them to come quick and they said they were coming. But they were taking long. I tried to stop a car but nothing would stop. I went back the first time and he was still breathing [but] he was struggling for air. I started to give him air from my mouth..."

Still unsure about what to do next, she ran back to the road to try again to stop a car. But no one stopped and she tried instead to get an ambulance from the West Demerara Regional Hospital. But she was told that she had to call the police station before anything could be done.

Luckily, a taxi driver, who she knew, was passing at the time and she managed to flag him down. He was transporting a passenger but promised to return as quickly as he could. She said in the meantime she ran back to Narain to get him ready to go to the hospital. "I went back and he was barely breathing. I go to give him air again and that is when he stopped breathing. He stopped breathing."

The indifference of citizens, and, worse yet, police and hospitall authorities is astonishing. An ambulance cannot come to collect the wounded unless police is called? That is insanity. In this instance, that piece of insanity contributed to the death of a young man.