Saturday, September 5 2009

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CUTLASS ATTACK VICTIMS: Peter Greene and his wife, Murium, seen at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset, England....

BRITISH couple Peter and Murium Greene cannot describe the brutality of the attack which so nearly killed them on August 1, while at their vacation home in Bacolet, Tobago, the Daily Mail has reported.

In a recent photograph of the couple, Murium’s face bear vivid scars, which snake across her broken nose and cheeks.

Scars also criss-cross the back of Peter’s fractured skull, the Daily Mail reported.

Clint Alexis, from Argyle, Tobago, is before the courts charged with attempted murder and last Friday was placed on $200,000 bail by a Scarborough Magistrate.

In their interview, Murium said of the attack, “He meant to finish us off, no doubt, and he probably thought he had,” she said as she sat at Peter’s hospital bedside. “But someone or something must have been watching over us. I can’t think of another way to explain how we’re both here now. We just feel so, so lucky to be alive and together.”

With grief and gratitude, they squeeze each other’s hands as they speak publicly for the first time about the incident. It made headlines around the world and dealt a perhaps irreparable blow to the reputation of Tobago — a paradise island, reliant on tourism, but where violent crime is steadily on the rise.

Although tears well up in their eyes, they tell their horrific story with extraordinary composure, the Daily Mail reported.

Murium has undergone two rounds of reconstructive surgery to rebuild her face and reattach her jaw, and Peter has only recently woken from a coma, induced by his doctors to help reduce the swelling on his brain, it is astonishing that they are able to speak at all.

“It is a struggle to describe this horror, this absolute horror, that someone could do this to us,” says Murium, 59.

“We’re so lucky to be alive that I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives full of hatred. But at the moment I can’t help it. Every minute of every day, I damn that man to hell.”

What they cannot say is what their attacker looked like. The damage was done before they could open their eyes, and afterwards Murium saw only his shoes as he walked casually away.

Tests confirmed that she was not sexually assaulted, but she has no idea what happened while she was unconscious.

Peter’s blood trail led from the patio into the house, but he has no memory of how he got there.

Then he adds quietly: “I can’t shake this feeling of guilt and inadequacy that I wasn’t able to help my wife when she needed me most.”

But for them — a devoted couple, married for almost 37 years, who fostered several children and are known to their friends for the compassion they show others — the cold-blooded and senseless nature of the attack is especially hard to accept.

The couple, the Daily Mail, reported hadn’t even planned to be in Tobago but when Peter was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and after his first bout of treatment they decided to take some much needed rest at their vacation home.

Their 30-year-old son, Martin, only heard what had happened when, three days later, it was reported in the British press and a friend called to tell him. He was on a beach in Cornwall and collapsed with shock.

He finds it harder than either of his parents to talk about the events of the past month. “When I spoke to the doctors, they said I should fly out straight away because, basically, they expected Dad to die very quickly,” he says.

The couple also spoke of their time at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex at Mt Hope.

“The doctors and nurses used 101 percent of what little resources they had. I don’t doubt that I owe my life to them,” Peter said.

They spoke fondly of THA chief secretary Orville London and his concern for them after the attack.

Murium was flown to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and eight days later, after doctors in Trinidad successfully removed a potentially life-threatening blood clot, Peter arrived at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, where he remains.

Despite initial worries that he would be partially paralysed, this week Peter took his first steps since the incident.

Neither Peter nor Murium is sure how they will feel when the time comes for them to return to the island.

“Even if we decide to sell the house, we will have to go back there to clear the place. But Murium isn’t sure she can set foot in that garden again. All we can do now is keep on the road to recovery and be grateful that he didn’t kill us,” says Peter.

And with unfathomable courage he adds: “But it is our dream that, this time next year, we’ll be sitting at a bar in Tobago, with a bottle of champagne and all our friends, as if this nightmare never happened.”