BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FAMILY members of a man who was discovered dead in his home and his dog, which was killed in the yard, are claiming that he might have been alive was it not for a hasty decision made by a unit from the Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
Sixty-two-year-old Rudolph Franklyn Jacobs, also known as Rudolph Belle, Manny and More Times, was discovered dead in his Herbert Street, Newtown home on the morning of Friday (Nov. 13) and was laid to rest last Thursday (Nov. 26) .
Speaking with this publication, one of the man’s nieces claimed that according to reports, on Thursday night (Nov. 12) her uncle was suffering from stomach pains and he had called for an ambulance to take him to the JNF General Hospital.
“We learned that after not feeling well, Uncle Manny called the hospital for an ambulance to take him there for treatment. A unit from the Emergency Medical Services went to his home on Thursday night but they couldn’t enter the yard because he had a bad dog on the loose.
“Both doors to his home were unlocked and the front door was ajar, but because of the dog the ambulance drove away. Neighbours saw when it drove away but they didn’t know that Uncle Manny was sick inside the house.
“However, the ambulance returned early the next morning but the dog was fiercely barking at the members of the unit from the EMS. As a result, they summoned a police officer who went and shot the dog. They then entered the house through the front door and found Uncle Manny’s motionless body on his bed. He was dead as a door nail,” the niece said.
She wistfully recalled how family members felt on learning what allegedly took place, noting that members of the EMS unit acted in a “very irrational manner”.
“We are all perturbed over the behaviour of those who went with the ambulance to Uncle Manny’s home and turned off. As medical attendants, they were very irrational in their judgment. Once you receive a call of such nature and were restrained because of a dog, but yet returned the very next day and shot the dog to gain entry into the home, why didn’t you do that in the first instance?
“If they had done what they did that Friday morning, maybe my uncle would have been alive today. The dog and Uncle Manny had shared a very close relationship and I am certain that if they had killed it just to respond to my uncle’s call for help, he would not have been annoyed.”
Contacted yesterday (Dec. 1) to ascertain the veracity of the allegation, one Mr. H. Coker who works at the EMS Department of the hospital told this publication that he was not authorised to speak to the media on such issues and recommended contact be made with the institution’s Matron.
That was done and the Matron also said she could not speak to the issue. She advised that this media house should speak to either the Medical Chief-of-Staff or the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health.
Time did not permit this media house to reach the Permanent Secretary yesterday because it was after 4:00 p.m. However, a call to the Assistant Commissioner of Police with responsibility for Crime, Ian Queeley, provided adequate details to prove that the incident did occur as stated by the dead man’s niece.
Queeley stated that a neighbour had called for the ambulance after not seeing Jacobs for some days and members of the EMS who had responded was unable to get into the yard because of the fierce dog.
He explained that on the Friday morning when the ambulance returned, members of the EMS were still unable to enter because of the dog’s presence, so they contacted an off-duty police officer who resides in the area.
Queeley further explained that the off-duty officer had made contact with the Criminal Investigations Department in Basseterre, from where a number of investigators under the supervision of Superintendent Charles Smithen responded.
On arrival at Jacob’s home, a decision was made to shoot the dog so that they could have gained entry.
The ACP added that on entering the home, the officers discovered Jacobs’ motionless body and they summoned his nephew, who is a member of the Police Force, to “come and identify the body”.
When contacted, the nephew refused to respond to questions asked and advised that other family members were in a better position to do so.
Once again, SKNVibes spoke with the dead man’s niece who endorsed what ACP Queeley said but disputed his statement on who had called for the ambulance.
“We have enough evidence that it was Uncle Manny who had called for the ambulance. If it was a fact that the neighbour did not see my uncle for a number of days, why call for an ambulance and not the police?”
She also stated that three of her aunts who reside in the USA and another who lives in St. Kitts all agreed to pursue the matter, “because we view the decision taken by the members of the EMS on that Thursday night was very irrational”.
