-ran away on fractured ankle

In her bid to escape from three masked bandits who attacked her home on Monday night, Parika resident Ormilla Talchand jumped from the veranda of her two-flat home and ran away on a fractured ankle.

This newspaper visited the woman at the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday, where she has been admitted as a patient. The woman said she was watching a television newscast around 7:30 that evening while her husband and one of their two sons were in the yard. She said her 12-year- old son who was with her at the time, left to go downstairs to join her husband and her 14 year old son, leaving the back door open. Moments after she was greeted by the sight of an intruder who pointed a gun at her, relieving her of jewellery she was wearing. She said the bandit told her to lie on the floor and he was soon joined by the two other men. Talchand said she tried to scream but the sudden  shock made her voice inaudible. She was then dragged to a bedroom where the men demanded money and she responded by telling them that the family did not have any.

While this was happening, Talchand said she heard her younger son telling her husband that something was happening upstairs and she soon heard one of her sons running next door to her sister’s house informing her that someone was attacking his parents’ home. She said the men told her not to make any noise, except to tell her husband that everything was alright, after he enquired if she was ok. The woman said her husband then came upstairs to investigate what was happening and as he approached her, she waved her hand in an attempt to bring the men’s attention to him. She said she saw one of the men hitting her husband in his head with a gun. In a fit of fear, Talchand said she scaled the verandah and when she landed in the yard, she felt a searing pain in her left leg. She said she nevertheless got up and made her way to her sister’s nearby home leaving her husband with the three bandits in the house. Shortly after, the traumatized woman said the men ran up the road near to a koker where they got into a waiting car before escaping.

While at the hospital yesterday, the woman told this newspaper that she is still experiencing some amount of pain in her left leg while the doctor advised her not to sit up since she may have sustained slight damage to her spine.

The woman said she could not understand why the bandits chose to attack her home since she noted that the family lives an ordinary lifestyle. She believes the men may have been looking at her home, since she was informed that they were seen at a nearby koker earlier that evening. Her husband told this newspaper yesterday that the police are still investigating the robbery while no one was arrested as yet. He said he lost his cellular phone during the ordeal which lasted for about 15 minutes.