A 78-year-old man was attacked on Saturday while at church on Princes Street, Georgetown, by a member of the congregation, who reportedly recently got baptised but went berserk and cut the man’s throat.
Guyana Times visited the injured man, Victor Daniels, at his Bent Street, Georgetown home on Wednesday, where he recalled that he and a few other church members, including the suspect, had finished some construction work and were cracking jokes when he was attacked.
Reports are the man was attacked at about 10:00h on Saturday morning.
“We were at the church. We were fetching in sand because the fence got to be done and so. After we finish fetching in the sand, we were making jokes, you know the wuk done so we feel nice. Suddenly I feel someone vice (choke) me but I feel is somebody making joke with me so I say wah wrong with ai yuh? We just done wuk stop making yourself stupid but then I feel it getting tighter and I feel like a prick so I just carry my arm (back) and I go down to the ground and that is how it (the cut) come right up here,” the injured man recollected.
He said he was not sure who had hurt him until he heard the Priest and other church folks shouting at the man asking what he had done. By then, Daniels said he was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was treated.
The man said he underwent a surgery and received 23 stitches to his neck. But in forgiving the youngster for what he had done, the pensioner said that he does not want the youth to go to jail.
“It’s not a robbery, that’s why I say something wrong. He tripped out, that why I told the Police he needs psychiatric evaluation because in these things all they study is incarceration but if you incarcerate a man, when he come out back is the same place he deh. It might even be worse,” the man stated.
According to him, the young man joined their congregation about a year ago and was, in fact, recently baptised.
The man’s wife, 75-year-old Veronica Daniels, told this newspaper that she thought she lost her husband when she got the news. She said, “I say that’s it. I say my husband die because if you hear somebody slash your husband’s throat you know is not nothing (good)”.
She said she is nonetheless happy that her husband is alive today. Mrs Daniels also expressed that she wants the young man to receive psychiatric treatment as she believes he had a mental breakdown that caused him to operate the way he did.
