Woman prays for gift of sight

TROUBLE seems to be following Cindy Nicholson, a 23-year-old woman who lived in a house that was burnt flat last month in Moruga, and in which baby Angel Amoroso perished. The little girl, who was burnt to death in that fire at La Lune Village on November 23, was Nicholson’s niece. Yesterday, Nicholson told of the brutal attack on her in which her left eye was almost gouged out. The pupil in the eye was ruptured and doctors fear that the woman’s eyesight could be permanently affected.

Nicholson told Newsday she was praying for a miracle this Christmas so she could be spared becoming permanently blind. With one hand clasped on the left eye, Nicholson said, “I cannot take the heat of the sun because I feel very dizzy and I get severe headaches.” If God hears people’s Christmas wishes, Nicholson sobbed, “I wish to have my eye back.” She said doctors told her she would not be able to see in the left eye for the next two years. Nicholson lives in a house with her sister who still grieves for her daughter — Angel. The women began living by relatives in the La Lune area, when tragedy struck again. Nicholson said a man struck her in the eye with a bottle. The man, who was arrested and charged on Monday, appeared before a Princes Town magistrate on Tuesday.  

Nicholson was warded for a week at the San Fernando General Hospital. She said she was unable to open her eye, which has two scars. “Even when I get back my sight,” Nicholson told Newsday, “the doctors said I will be short-sighted. I spent a week in hospital and got stitches inside and outside my eyes. Doctors said the baby (pupil) in my eye burst.” Nicholson has to do a CAT scan so doctors can determine the extent of the damage in and around the area of the eyeball, but the woman said the scan, which costs $950, was beyond what she could afford.