A fam­i­ly lime at Bayshore, Mara­bel­la, end­ed trag­i­cal­ly on Fri­day night af­ter gun­men opened fire on them, killing a 32-year-old man.

At­i­ba Wild­man, a work­er at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, died hours lat­er at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Wild­man, a fa­ther of two, was shot once.

A res­i­dent liv­ing a short dis­tance away from where Wild­man was killed was al­so shot that night. She told po­lice that she was awak­ened by loud ex­plo­sions and then re­alised that she had been shot in the leg. She is ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

A rel­a­tive re­called, "Min­utes to 11 we had a fam­i­ly lime. We saw about five to six fel­las walk­ing down from the area, and they start to shoot be­hind us and every­body run."

Short­ly af­ter, rel­a­tives found Wild­man ly­ing on the road. "When we raise him, we did not see any blood. But, he on­ly keep say­ing he weak. When we car­ry him in­side, then we re­alised he had a bul­let in his back. He had a hole in his back. We rush him to the hos­pi­tal," she said.

A bullet hole on a galvanize fence in the Marabella Trainline where Atiba Wildman was killed on Friday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

How­ev­er, they claimed the hos­pi­tal did not give Wild­man im­me­di­ate med­ical care. "The hos­pi­tal take a very long. About three hours to do surgery on him, prob­a­bly four...He was in and out of con­scious­ness. He kept ask­ing how we go­ing and if it is his fam­i­ly safe." She said he al­so signed the hos­pi­tal's surgery con­sent form. "He was con­scious. They could have well more than save his life," she lament­ed.

Res­i­dents, how­ev­er, be­lieve that the men who are steal­ing ca­bles in the area are al­so re­spon­si­ble for a fire that de­stroyed two hous­es and a par­lour last month, as well as Wild­man's mur­der. They al­so com­plained that since last year they have been ask­ing the au­thor­i­ties to re­pair the non-func­tion­ing street lights in the area. Homi­cide de­tec­tives are still work­ing on a mo­tive. Guardian Me­dia reached out to the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) about the fam­i­ly's claim, but no re­sponse was forth­com­ing up to late Sat­ur­day.