ONE STEP FROM DISASTER

For over 30 years, Dorey McPherson sold goods at the Morant Bay Market in St Thomas, stepping countless times on the deteriorating manhole cover beside her stall – always without incident. But last December, her luck ran out. The cover gave way under her weight, plunging her leg into the drain below and sending her face slamming into a nearby chair.

Her world went black, her face heavy, as blood gushed from a cut above her eye. Disoriented and embarrassed, she tried to stand – only to realise her leg was still wedged between the rusting metal grilles. Panic set in.

This wasn’t the first such incident. Just weeks before, a child’s leg had slipped into the same drain – though that case didn’t escalate. Emergency workers in Morant Bay told The Sunday Gleaner that many similar accidents go unreported and unnoticed.

Last week, broken sidewalks and missing manhole covers throughout the town – and even miles away in Kingston – told a silent but dangerous story.

Dr Christine Hendricks, executive director of the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD), warned that these hazards not only terrify the disabled community but pose a threat to all pedestrians.

McPherson said the trauma of her fall still haunts her. Even now, the stench from the same drain triggers memories of that terrifying moment.

“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up. Everybody run come,” she recalled.

Pointing to a woman nearby, McPherson recounted: “She came with something to try to free my foot, and another man tried a thing. But I was actually in the hole for more than half an hour. It was so devastating.”

Eventually, someone fetched help from the nearby Morant Bay Fire Station. Firefighters arrived with a saw to cut her free.

“They came with something (saw) and started it up. I was too afraid to look, so I just turned my face away. My pastor was there and I said, ‘Rev, don’t meck dem cut off my foot!’ But I never looked,” she said, noting that she soon felt the release of her leg.

She was taken to the hospital for treatment. Her eye – swollen and bruised – was examined, and she continues to suffer from occasional pain. The affected part of her leg, now discoloured and now somehow growing more hair than on other parts of the limb, remains a source of discomfort.

No repairs have been made, nine months later

Despite submitting medical and fire reports to the St Thomas Municipal Corporation, McPherson says no repairs have been made, nine months later. During a tour of the market by senior municipal officials, she pointed out the jagged remains of the damaged manhole – but it remains untouched.

Nine months later, her frustration is growing.

Mostly healed, her eye still hurts under certain conditions, she said last week as she openly contemplated her options for redress.

Attempts by The Sunday Gleaner to reach Morant Bay Mayor Louis Chin were unsuccessful. A visit to his office did not yield any success and he did not respond to WhatsApp messages.

Meanwhile, Kingston Mayor Andrew Swaby acknowledged concerns but claimed that maintenance of drains and sidewalks falls under other government agencies, not the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation.

On Saturday, National Works Agency Communications Manager Stephen Shaw told The Sunday Gleaner he was unable to immediately say which roads and drains are under the maintenance of the agency. He promised to conduct an investigation and provide a response next week.

In Kingston, along Slipe Pen Road, parents and staff at Central Branch All-Age School expressed alarm over open, overgrown trenches lining the roadway – a risk especially for children, the elderly, and the disabled.

Last week, parents avoided that section of the roadway altogether, instead risking oncoming traffic and a narrow sidewalk with ill-placed light posts that force pedestrians into the road.

“It is particularly difficult for the unmonitored children, those who come to school on their own. It has been there for years. I didn’t even notice that it was getting that bad. It’s not covered. It’s just there; anyone can fall into it. And to be honest. We don’t even know if anyone has fallen into one of them and has gotten hurt,” said a parent, who gave her name as Kerry Ann.

“Old people walk on the road, people with their children, and sometimes people walk and gaze, and anything can happen – broken foot, broken hand, any a dem things there. So the best thing to happen is to get it fixed to avoid a lot of danger,” added Andrew Benjamin, as he and his granddaughter made their way from school home last Friday.

Lorna Tennant, a school staff member with a disabled daughter, added: “I have to push her on the sidewalk. The holes there are very big, and you have to be careful when you are pushing her because the iron and concrete underneath it is very rotten. rotten out completely.”

Hendricks pointed to a larger, systemic issue: Jamaica’s sidewalks and drains are generally unsafe – even those recently constructed.

She said the issue of poorly maintained drains and inaccessible sidewalks is a long-standing one with no apparent end in sight, as the disabled are still disadvantaged even with the construction of newer sidewalks in the city, like those on Hagley Park Road. She said both these and the ill-maintained drains pose problems not only to the disabled community but to able-bodied civilians like McPherson, who are also at risk of serious injury if they happen to come up on these.

Sidewalks inaccessible

“The sidewalks are largely inaccessible, whether they are cracked or they have light poles in them, or they were just not built to universal design standards. Even those sidewalks that were most recently built on Hagley Park Road and in the Cross Roads area the curb cuts are still too steep. Still not built to the standards of the building code and to the specifications to cater to the disabled community,” said Hendricks.

“We have a responsibility under the Disabilities Act as well as under the Building Act to ensure that the environment becomes accessible to the public because it’s not only people with disabilities who have challenges. The regular man on the street can’t walk on the sidewalk because they have to come out into the road when they come up on these light poles and other obstacles.”

“This is a general public issue in how we seek to protect our citizens, and more so, those who are vulnerable. Somebody with their two legs, two hands, two eyes, can make a quick skip off the sidewalk and skip around a manhole, light pole, or a crack quickly before the driver who is coming from either side of the road comes up to them. The vulnerable persons, the senior citizens, the child, the persons who have a physical disability, who use a wheelchair, cannot, she argued.

She explained that persons with disabilities can make a report to the JCPD if they come up on those barriers. An investigation will be done, and efforts will be made to have the relevant entities, including government agencies, rectify the problems. However, not everybody affected is reporting a complaint, so the numbers are very low, she said, and are far from the number of projected incidents where such neglected drains and sidewalks have caused injury to Jamaicans.

“Perhaps they (disabled) are still not fully aware that they can make a complaint. We cannot report ourselves; they have to make the report, or somebody does it on their behalf,” she explained, adding that if nothing is done, the matter is usually elevated to a disabilities tribunal.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com