Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Three weeks af­ter she was shot in the head while on her way home, Dr Dorothy Williams-Chan­dler has died.

Po­lice said she died around 8.30 pm at the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, af­ter she was trans­ferred from the In­ten­sive Care Unit at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope, on Thurs­day, as that hos­pi­tal was un­der­go­ing elec­tri­cal up­grades.

Po­lice said just af­ter mid­night on Au­gust 30, Williams-Chan­dler was dri­ving her grey Toy­ota RAV4 head­ing to her Igneri Road, Val­sayn home. How­ev­er, while on Daniel Dri­ve, off Mendez Dri­ve, a white Nis­san wag­on blocked her path and two armed men got out and opened fire.

An off-du­ty prison of­fi­cer, who was dri­ving be­hind her, saw the at­tack and opened fire on the men, killing one of the shoot­ers, lat­er iden­ti­fied as Adam Wheel­er, of Bel­mont.

At the time of the shoot­ing, Wheel­er was out on bail for pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion af­ter be­ing charged on Au­gust 1. A Tau­rus pis­tol with 11 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion was re­cov­ered near his body, along with 19 spent 9mm shells at the scene.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Williams-Chan­dler’s home yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives chose not to speak.

Dur­ing a tour of the Cen­tral Block at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe said Williams-Chan­dler was his se­nior and an ex­cel­lent sur­geon.

“On a per­son­al note, I would have worked with Dr Williams-Chan­dler, she would have been a few years my se­nior. She was an ex­cel­lent sur­geon, she would have worked at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, right here where we are and the San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tal. I would want to ex­press my con­do­lences and com­mend the work she would have done as a sur­geon in the pub­lic ser­vice for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He al­so com­mend­ed the staff in the ICU at the EWM­SC, say­ing doc­tors would have tried their very best to do every­thing pos­si­ble for her.

He said the doc­tors kept in touch with him dur­ing her time in hos­pi­tal.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty re­mem­bered Williams-Chan­dler, a Ja­maican na­tion­al, for her ex­cep­tion­al sur­gi­cal skills and clin­i­cal ex­cel­lence as a sur­geon, a moth­er, and a re­spect­ed mem­ber of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal com­mu­ni­ty.