An­na-Lisa Paul

Ap­peal Court judge Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo has been tak­en to the Johns Hop­kins Hos­pi­tal in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, USA, for fur­ther spe­cial­ist care fol­low­ing se­vere in­juries he sus­tained in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent last Sun­day. A re­lease from court pro­to­col and in­for­ma­tion man­ag­er, Jones P Madeira, said Kan­ga­loo left Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at 5.52 am with a five-man crew, in­clud­ing three doc­tors on a spe­cial Lear Jet air am­bu­lance.

The jet ar­rived in Trinidad three hours be­fore the judge's de­par­ture and doc­tors im­me­di­ate­ly went to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex to speak with lo­cal doc­tors and to or­gan­ise the air­lift. Kan­ga­loo was seen off at Pi­ar­co by his sis­ter, at­tor­ney Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and her hus­band, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, and Madeira.

A neu­ro­sur­geon per­formed emer­gency surgery on Kan­ga­loo on Sun­day. Madeira said Kan­ga­loo had been in a co­ma since the ac­ci­dent, and al­though still very crit­i­cal, doc­tors not­ed some im­prove­ment, up to his de­par­ture yes­ter­day. The two po­lice of­fi­cers who were in­jured in the ac­ci­dent-Cpl Ter­rence For­tune and PC Mar­vin Cae­sar-con­tin­ue to re­cu­per­ate at home.

Madeira said Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Kan­ga­loo fam­i­ly wel­comed the news of the judge's im­prove­ment and have asked that he be re­mem­bered in every­one's prayers for a full re­cov­ery.