It’s been 11 years since Yvonne McIvor’s leg was blown off in an explosion in downtown Port-of-Spain and she said she has never asked why it happened to her. “I didn’t ask why it happened to me. I have this feeling that whatever happened, the hand of the Lord had something to do with it,” McIvor, 77, now, said. She has also forgiven the person who placed the explosive device in the dustbin on Frederick Street.
“I told myself the bomb was not placed there for Yvonne. Whoever did it was wrong but I forgive him.” McIvor, who now moves around in a wheelchair in her Arima home, even doing her own cooking and baking, frequently shares her story of triumph over her terrible ordeal with people who visit her and the congregation at her church.
A retired public servant, she was 66 when the incident that was to forever change her life happened. A cancer survivor, she was walking past Maraj Jewelers in the city on July 11, 2005 on her way to the Radiotherapy Centre in St James when the device in the dustbin exploded.
The incident occurred four days after a London bombing. There was speculation that terrorists were behind the Port-of-Spain dustbin attack. There were two other similar incidents in St James and Port-of-Spain but no one was ever arrested for the offences. Some 14 people were injured.
“I remember seeing so much blood when the bomb threw me on the ground and hearing someone say, ‘look that lady leg hanging by a piece of skin’ and hoping they were not talking about me.”
She slipped into a coma right after and spent six weeks in the hospital while doctors amputated her left leg and did surgery on her lungs after broken ribs punctured them. Her left ear was permanently damaged and she never regained hearing in that one.
Perhaps, the worst damage McIvor suffered was psychological. One night during her stay in the hospital, she woke up at 2 am and told the nurse to tell her daughter to walk in the middle of the road (to avoid the sidewalk because of danger).
When she was discharged, McIvor kept hearing the loud explosion in her ear and was terrified to be alone.
“I used to feel something was going to happen. When my husband, David, went to the market or do other errands, I would shout to the neighbour from the window and ask her to come and stay with me.”
After about four years of psychological torment, McIvor began to heal. “I am a very spiritual person and I prayed for help to cope with this life and not blame anybody.
“I rely on God every single day. I don’t care who believes and who doesn’t believe. I know I believe. It is He who gives me the strength to face every day with a smile and be positive.”
McIvor said David, 79, has been faithfully at her side throughout her ordeal. What never healed are the “phantom pains” she gets in the severed leg which have been increasing, she said.
“Sometimes, I look down where I have no leg and feel something like sharp nails dragging over my instep or feel a scraping on the heel, or shin or the big toe.”
McIvor said she read an article that said this is caused by nerve endings that are still active but which do not tell the brain the foot is no longer there.
“I realised this is something I have to live with. Just like I got accustomed to having no leg and being completely deaf in my left ear.”
McIvor refuses to let the bad experience cloud her positive outlook. “People must know they must not allow themselves to be so overtaken by the negative that there’s no room for the positive.”