Woman’s hand chopped off

A MOTHER of three lost her hand and two fingers during a brutal attack by a relative at a house in Princes Town on Friday night.  She was also chopped on her back and head. But as Tricia St John, 29, lay in a hospital bed yesterday, she thanked God that her life was saved. “The doctors couldn’t save it (reattach the hand), but I still have to live my life. I still have my children,” St John whispered painfully. Police are searching for a 35-year-old relative in connection with  the incident. The suspect is expected to be charged with attempted murder.

The attack on St John took place around 8.30 pm when she was at the relative’s house at Third St, Contention Street Extension. St John, a security guard, of Prizgar Lands, Laventille, had been staying there since Tuesday. St John told Sunday Newsday she had walked out into the roadway to speak to a male friend on her cell phone when she felt a crushing blow on her back. “Simple things does trigger him off,” St John sobbed, “he must have known who I was talking to.” She said she turned around to see the relative, a canecutter, “firing” chops, and planassing her with a straight gilpin. In one swipe, St John’s right hand was chopped off at the elbow. The bleeding woman ran into a neighbour’s yard seeking refuge leaving the severed limb on the roadway. “When she start to run, he start to fire more chop. The same hand she was holding the phone he chop that off clean,” one eyewitness said. Two of St John’s fingers on her right hand were also severed. She also received two deep chop wounds on the side of her head, and on her back.

As neighbours intervened and shielded St John from her attacker, the suspect escaped from the scene by running into the bushes at the back of his house still holding the bloody cutlass. A neighbour retrieved the severed limb and handed it over to the Emergency Health Services medical personnel when they arrived to take St John to the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH). St John underwent emergency surgery on Friday night, but doctors were unable to reattach the hand. She is warded in a stable but serious condition. The woman said that during the stormy relationship with the suspect she made numerous made reports of domestic abuse and violence, but many of them went unheeded by police. “Some nights I couldn’t sleep because he have a cutlass on the bed. But when I tell the police that he making threats on my life they would tell me that we should settle things by ourself.” When she finally ended the relationship she checked into the home for Battered Women in Piparo so the suspect would not find her.
Wherever I go he would follow me,” she said sadly. “ I just could never get away from him.” Sgt Errol Ramdath and Cpl Chankersingh are continuing investigations.