Good Samaritan spirit alive in St Elizabeth

Outside the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital on the grounds of Black River High School, a small act of kindness recently unfolded, capturing the spirit of resilience following Hurricane Melissa.

From the back of a car, Earl Whyte of Brucefield district was handing out patties to anyone who passed. At first, it seemed like a roadside sale. But there was no money exchanged. Whyte received about three dozen patties from a “good Samaritan” and chose to share them rather than keep them for himself or sell them – fittingly, outside the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital.

He was at the field hospital with his common-law wife, Dahlia Coke, and his sister, who had suffered minor cuts and bruises during storm. Coke, a diabetic, was receiving follow-up treatment for a finger injury after initially seeking care at the severely damaged Black River Hospital.

The Samaritan Purse’s field hospital at Black River has been fully operational since two days after Melissa passed, and is receiving patients with various complaints, and offering a variety of services including minor surgeries and in-patient services.

While Coke was waiting to be attended to, Whyte was giving away the patties, with a smile, but that smile belied the serious distress that he and Coke were going through. The butcher and his partner’s house was destroyed partially by Melissa. In the Category 5 storm, they had also lost four goats and three pigs.

ZINC ROOF DAMAGED

Their daughter was away in Kingston when the storm struck, leaving the couple to face the ordeal alone. “Mi belly bottom feel like it a guh drop out when mi hear the roof start raise,” Whyte recalled. The house, built of concrete, had one “decked” room, while the rest was covered with zinc roofing. The wind tore the zinc away “like a bird,” he said.

He said: “I feel very upset and frighten, frighten a lot, and when the roof come off, a feel water coming down on us. Lucky wi lucky we could swim.”

And they swam to the decked room, where they survived the ordeal. “If wi never had dat (the decked room), wi woulda get knock,” he said in retrospect.

The day after the storm, they opened the back door to find water rushing out “like river.” Their mattress was soaked, and their chest of drawers had swollen from the deluge. “The entire place was a total mess,” Whyte said.

Up to the time of speaking with The Gleaner, the couple said they had got no significant assistance. They got some help from their church, but apart from that it only “hearsay” of help to come.

To compound their distress, it had been raining regularly since the passage of Melissa, and while they were at the field hospital they heard it was raining in their area. “Every time it rain, she a fret fi guh clean up back everything,” Whyte said about Coke.

As for Whyte giving away the patties, Coke said,” He’s giving away patties because him get them, and being a good Samaritan him do it.”

According to Whyte: “Some people are selling them, but I don’t do that, is giving away I’m doing. Sometimes when you do good, at all times, it’s better for you. It lead up to a next goodness.”

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