While Amoy Maniero and her two teenage daugh­ters bat­tle for their lives af­ter pos­si­bly be­ing poi­soned, her friends and neigh­bours are pray­ing for their full re­cov­ery. 

Maniero, 42, Jew­el Joseph, 17, and Mir­a­cle Joseph, 16, are all be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal due to pos­si­ble organophos­phate poi­son­ing, ac­cord­ing to the po­lice.

Organophos­phates are chem­i­cal com­pounds used in her­bi­cides, pes­ti­cides, and in­sec­ti­cides. It can al­so be used in the man­u­fac­ture of plas­tics and sol­vents. 

Yes­ter­day, neigh­bour Steve Richards de­scribed the fam­i­ly as close-knit and kind.

 He said Maniero was help­ful to every­one.

“To hear what hap­pened was re­al­ly shock­ing. Every­one is sad and we are all pray­ing for her,” he said. 

Richards said Maniero and her chil­dren ate me­l­on­gene and roti, fol­low­ing which they im­me­di­ate­ly fell ill.  

“We feel sad about what hap­pened. She (Amoy) is a re­al­ly nice per­son. She even tu­tors my lit­tle niece. Any work we have to do, she is al­ways there for us. If we don’t know about some­thing, she will help us so we are all pray­ing for her,” Richards said.

While he did not know what led to the sus­pect­ed poi­son­ing, Richards feared that too much pes­ti­cide may have been used on the me­l­on­gene by a farmer plagued by prae­di­al lar­ce­ny. Po­lice could not con­firm if this was in­deed the case.

An­oth­er neigh­bour, Ivy Richards, al­so laud­ed Maniero for be­ing kind and friend­ly. 

“We are all God-fear­ing peo­ple and this com­mu­ni­ty is re­al­ly nice. She had no en­e­mies. We don’t know how this could have hap­pened,” she said.

Mean­while, po­lice say they are con­tin­u­ing to probe the source of the sus­pect­ed poi­son. In­ves­ti­ga­tors seized the me­l­on­gene and roti to con­duct fur­ther tests. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Maniero and her chil­dren ate the meal around 10.30 pm on April 25 and short­ly af­ter be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing se­vere vom­it­ing and stom­ach aches.

EHS rushed them to the Siparia Health Fa­cil­i­ty for ur­gent med­ical at­ten­tion. 

The daugh­ters were then trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for fur­ther spe­cialised treat­ment.

Po­lice said the youngest teenag­er was ad­mit­ted to the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU), while her sis­ter re­ceived care in the Pe­di­atric Ward.

They are all rest­ing in sta­ble con­di­tions at the hos­pi­tal.