Cutlass attack victim needs help with medical bills

Almost two months after being brutally attacked by the father of her children, Givvon Bynoe faces an uncertain future.{{more}}

The 23-year-old Paget Farm, Bequia resident says that she is at a loss at how to proceed with her life, which was instantly transformed on December 5 last year, when she was attacked by Deron Hazell on the Grenadine island while she worked with a road gang.

Along with mounting expenses, Bynoe laments that the visits to the doctors, pending therapy and other matters related to the attack are causing emotional pain.

“It has been plenty stress, I have to do and pay for everything. If not for family and friends, I don’t know what I would do.

“It is one appointment after appointment, after appointment.”

Bynoe, who had just left a doctor’s office, told SEARCHLIGHT on Tuesday, January 24, that she has another appointment in a matter of days, at which the doctor will determine when she would undergo surgery.

Unfortunately and ironically, Givvon is afraid of blades.

It was the blade of a cutlass that almost ended her life, and it is the surgical blade in a doctor’s hand that may help to return her life to as close to normalcy as possible.

Recounting the day that changed her life, Givvon said that she never expected to be attacked by her boyfriend, nor did she think that she was going to die.

“I remember seeing him coming and the girl telling me to run, but I didn’t see him coming with nothing, so I didn’t see any reason to run, because we didn’t have nothing, so I smile and then he reach close to me and he tek out the cutlass and pelt the first chop…. It catch me on my (left) hand.”

“Then I remember he hold me down and then I remember the chop in my back.

“I was conscious but helpless; I could hear the people who was shouting from a distance, then after I fall on the ground…. I just kept praying to God to protect me.”

Givvon sustained chops to her hand, face, head and back of her neck, some over 18 inches long.

The chops required multiple stitches to close, and she suffered various injuries, including a fractured left collar bone, severed nerves in her face; with one chop, according to Givvon, just inches from her brain.

She has problems moving her head and neck, and also suffers from pain in her back and ear, and has a speech impairment because of the attack.

Givvon, who spent eleven days at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, says that what has her more upset and frustrated since her release from the institution, is that Deron, 26, who is on remand at Her Majesty’s Prison, has made a series of telephone calls to her from behind bars.

“First I was kinda frighten, because when he call I was hearing music in the background, so I thought he was out…. He ask me if I aright and I freeze for a while, and then the phone cut out…. after that I keep receiving a whole set of call and when I answer, the person putting down….”

Givvon said that their children, four-year-old son Javorn and daughter Giselle, two, are also traumatized by the ordeal, and are concerned about their mother’s safety, usually warning her not to go outside for fear that their father will hurt her again.

According to Givvon, her daughter, who was especially attached to their father, would run in fear when she passes the area where he lived.

Givvon indicated the attack may have stemmed from jealousy, which had arisen over a period of time, because of rumours that were spread by others about her, which she denies.

“In Bequia… once they see you talking to somebody strange, before the end of the day, the story is that you dey with that person.

“Since the story start, if I go somewhere, he will call me a hundred million times asking me ‘way you dey so long’….”

Givvon pointed out that she is uncertain if she has forgiven her attacker, claiming that at times she feels for revenge, and at other times she just feels sorry for him.

The physically and emotionally hurt, yet thankful young woman is appealing for assistance in order to cover her medical expenses, which she said are expected to rise as time goes on.

Her next trip under a blade is in an effort to repair nerves in her face.

“Any assistance I get, I will thank God for it.”