IN JAMAICA: 66-yar-old man who fell in gully wants proper infrastructure for the disabled...PERCIVAL McIntosh, 66, was going about his business, only to find the sidewalk suddenly disappearing from underneath him, and plunging into a wet, filthy gully on Torrington Road in St Andrew.... I (had) stepped right over and broke my foot," he recounted yesterday. The senior citizen said he was assisted and taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where he received treatment. "The x-ray showed that my right foot was broken. For the next six weeks, I was unable to get out of bed," he said..

BY ALPHEA SAUNDERS Senior staff reporter saundersa@jamaica observer.com  Thursday, March 26, 2015   

PERCIVAL McIntosh, 66, was going about his business, only to find the sidewalk suddenly disappearing from underneath him, and plunging into a wet, filthy gully on Torrington Road in St Andrew.

PERCIVAL McIntosh, 66, 

McIntosh, who lost this sight nine years ago, told the Jamaica Observer that on Christmas Eve last year he alighted on Slipe Road from a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus, which he said had detoured. Guided by his cane, he began walking down Torrington Road towards the intersection at Slipe Pen Road.

"The next thing I knew, I woke up wet and with my foot feeling as if someone had put iron boots on it [and] people told me I stepped into the gully. I (had) stepped right over and broke my foot," he recounted yesterday.

The senior citizen said he was assisted and taken to the Kingston Public Hospital where he received treatment. "The x-ray showed that my right foot was broken. For the next six weeks, I was unable to get out of bed," he said.

A pedestrian walks by the ‘un-railed’ gully at the corner
 of Slipe Pen Road and Torrington Road where senior citizen
Percival McIntosh says he fell last December.
 (PHOTO: GARFIELD ROBINSON)

The Jones Town resident, who decided to go public to highlight the dangers faced by the blind on the streets, yesterday pulled a sheaf of letters from a bucket containing documents, including a personal injury claim submitted to the National Works Agency (NWA). He also presented a response from the works agency, requesting supporting evidence of his injury, including receipts, invoices, a medical report, and eyewitness statement.

He said he has since submitted the eyewitness statement, but is awaiting a medical report from his physician, which he should receive by the end of April.

McIntosh made it clear that while the NWA has responded, there is a deeper issue at hand that must be addressed.

"Those places must have on rails. Even if the people thief them out for the scrapyard, put them back on. Me step right over into a gully and that should not to happen. If the rail was there I would feel it with the stick," he argued. more