A Cepep work­er is fight­ing for her life at hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing a bru­tal cut­lass at­tack at her job site in Princes Town that left her with chop wounds to her head and arms.

Kadisha We­st­on-Ran­some, 30, a moth­er of one, was in crit­i­cal con­di­tion last evening at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, while her 45-year-old at­tack­er was un­der po­lice guard at the same in­sti­tu­tion.

The sus­pect, a close male rel­a­tive, al­leged­ly tried to slit his throat.

We­st­on-Ran­some was at­tacked in the pres­ence of her col­leagues at Con­tention Road, In­di­an Walk.

Po­lice said at 6.40 am, the woman was on the side of the road when the sus­pect pulled up along­side her in a car and came out hold­ing a cut­lass. We­st­on-Ran­some be­gan to run but the sus­pect caught up with her and shoved her in­to the bush­es. Her screams echoed through the area as the man chopped her sev­er­al times, in­clud­ing on her head, arms and fin­gers. The at­tack­er then cut his throat.

One of the sus­pect’s rel­a­tives took him and the woman to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where they were treat­ed and trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Yes­ter­day, a vil­lager lament­ed, “We nev­er ex­pe­ri­ence them thing here. What this place com­ing to?”

We­st­on-Ran­some’s sis­ter, Jenelle We­st­on, al­leged that more than a week ago, the sus­pect at­tacked the moth­er of one and hit her with a bot­tle on the head, which re­sult­ed in her get­ting five stitch­es. She claimed the man al­so burnt her sis­ter’s clothes and doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing her birth cer­tifi­cate. We­st­on said her sis­ter filed a po­lice re­port, and since then she had been stay­ing at her Moru­ga home.

We­st­on re­called that when her sis­ter left home for work at 5.30 am, she told her to “be safe, sis.”

But hours lat­er, We­st­on-Ran­some called in tears, say­ing she was at­tacked.

The sis­ter claimed the po­lice took too long to re­spond and said she was al­ready up­set with of­fi­cers for not ar­rest­ing the sus­pect af­ter the first at­tack on We­st­on-Ran­some oc­curred.

“Trinidad is the worst when it comes to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Now, she is in San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al,” she said.

We­st­on said her sis­ter has a nine-year-old son and works hard to pro­vide for her child.

“She is al­ways hus­tling. She cleans hous­es and works with Cepep,” she added.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the sus­pect’s In­di­an Walk home, his rel­a­tives said they did not know what trig­gered the at­tack, since he was not a vi­o­lent per­son.

Po­lice re­trieved a cut­lass at the scene. Princes Town po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.