NFM worker’s wife delivers baby girl

At the time of Wendell’s death, Blenman was expecting her second child.

Lisa was close to tears at her George Street home in Ste Madeleine yesterday. Wendell would have been the happiest man, she said, tightly holding their newborn daughter.

Wendell was one of two workers who died in an explosion at National Flour Mills on October 19. He died on November 2 in a Miami hospital.

The couple has a six-year-old son, but Blenman spoke yesterday of how Wendell prayed long and hard for a baby girl.

She was six months pregnant when he was killed. News of his injury on the night of the incident had caused her to go into a state of shock.

Believing that Wendell’s eagerness for a baby girl was the best therapy to pull him through the severe burns he sustained, Blenman travelled to Miami to be at her husband’s bedside. Wendell’s co-worker — Sunil Persad — also died from injuries while undergoing treatment. Blenman, 38, said her worst fears were realised when she travelled back to Trinidad in her pregnant state without her husband.

"The whole thing seemed like a dream," she said. Until, January 25, Blenman said, when she gave birth to Sade Zion Blenman at the San Fernando General Hospital.

Yesterday, Blenman spoke of the joy she felt when she gave birth to her baby daughter.

"From the moment I learnt that I was pregnant, Wendell and I decided that we would have named her Sade," Blenman said.

The couple had decided on the child’s name while watching a television programme.

Wiping away a tear yesterday as she gazed down at Sade Zion, Blenman said, "I do not have Wendell, but I have the daughter that he always wanted."