MARVA FIGHTS BACK

One look at Marva Lyttle walking with crutches and it will be easy to feel pity for the bubbly little lady. She will, however, tell you that if you had seen her after her September 17, 2005 accident in Argyle, then you would be thanking God, for her being as she is, that she is walking at all.

On her way back from a political meeting in Georgetown, at a little after 10 p.m. that horrific night, Marva was relaxing in the front seat of a van driven by her husband. “We were talking and making jokes when I heard ‘puff’ and I saw my husband trying to get the van back on the road,” she remembered. {{more}}

Marva told SEARCHLIGHT HEALTH that she recalls the frightening exclamation “oh Jesus” uttered by her husband as the van slammed into a wall. She was thrown forward, hit her face on the dashboard, bust her chin and knocked out her teeth.

SEARCHLIGHT HEALTH spoke to Marva as she attended one of her regular therapy sessions at the Milton Cato Memorial Physical Therapy Centre. As she was going through her routine, which includes hot and cold treatment, and leg exercises with leg weights strapped on. On reflection, the Redemption Sharpe’s mother of five realizes that if she had been wearing a seat belt, considering the nature of her accident, she might have had less severe injuries.

She told SEARCHLIGHT HEALTH that she welcomed the new seat belt and helmet regulations that would soon become law in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

She recalled how even though she wasn’t unconscious that she was so dazed after the impact that she couldn’t call out for help or communicate at all for a while, even though she was seeing and hearing everything taking place around her.

Even as she jokingly commented that she finds it difficult to buckle seat beats, Marva, however acknowledged that her type of injury can mostly be minimized with the usage of seat beats and is calling on all Vincentians to obey the new regulation for their own good.

As for her, she is on the mend and is encouraged that with time, God’s help and the good work of her therapists, she will be all right.