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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Sparrow doing well after surgery

by

20100728

Renowned ca­lyp­so icon Slinger Fran­cis­co, pop­u­lar­ly known as Spar­row, is rest­ing com­fort­ably at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal in Mary­land, Unit­ed States, af­ter un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, he suf­fered acute pain on the right groin. Fran­cis­co was re­leased from hos­pi­tal on Mon­day and is ex­pect­ed to make a full re­cov­ery, it stat­ed. Re­cent­ly, Fran­cis­co suf­fered health prob­lems dur­ing his not so per­fect per­for­mance at the NA­PA Fest, Port-of-Spain, last Sun­day. He said it could be ver­ti­go–a con­di­tion char­ac­terised by dizzi­ness. A med­ical re­port was pre­pared by Dr Pa­tri­cia San­di­ford. She had ad­min­is­tered emer­gency care and ac­com­pa­nied Fran­cis­co to the hos­pi­tal af­ter he suf­fered the at­tack while per­form­ing at a venue in Mary­land on Sat­ur­day.

San­di­ford was as­sist­ed by fel­low doc­tors Jac­in­ta Ar­ring­ton and Roger Weir in ad­min­is­ter­ing emer­gency care at the venue. When he was sta­bilised, Spar­row was trans­port­ed by am­bu­lance to Mont­gomery Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Ol­ney, Mary­land, it stat­ed. The re­lease said: "Fran­cis­co was di­ag­nosed with an in­car­cer­at­ed right in­guinal her­nia, which was re­duced with­in six to eight hours," the re­lease said. "He sub­se­quent­ly had emer­gency surgery per­formed by Dr George Con­rad on Sun­day at the same hos­pi­tal." "He tol­er­at­ed the pro­ce­dure well and was in sta­ble con­di­tion im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter surgery. He was dis­charged on Mon­day."

Spar­row sings Spar­row Dead

Pro­mot­ers Carl­ton Joseph and Fred Thorn­hill al­so pre­pared a re­lease, in which they said Fran­cis­co had to be as­sist­ed off- stage dur­ing his per­for­mance at Kaiso on the Greens. Spar­row, Kurt Allen and Brown Boy, backed by the Trou­ba­dours, were per­form­ing there on Sat­ur­day night. Spar­row be­gan his per­for­mance by jok­ing about the lat­est ru­mour that he had gone to the great be­yond. He kept up the mo­men­tum by singing two vers­es of Spar­row Dead. Still, fans no­ticed it was a more sub­dued Spar­row who per­formed from a seat­ed po­si­tion cen­tre stage. Al­though he ap­peared to be phys­i­cal­ly weak, his hu­mour was in­tact. His voice was strong and un­mis­tak­ably Fran­cis­co's. He had the ap­pre­cia­tive pa­trons on their feet danc­ing, wav­ing and singing along.

Pain in groin

As his per­for­mance wound to a close, what was an al­most un­no­ticed, the oc­ca­sion­al clutch­ing of Fran­cis­co's low­er right side be­came a painful gri­mace. It brought his per­for­mance and the show to a pre­ma­ture end. Spar­row had to be as­sist­ed off-stage and tak­en in­to the house. A stunned and vis­i­bly shak­en crowd wait­ed for news of his con­di­tion. They won­dered if what they had wit­nessed was the ful­fil­ment of what was to date on­ly a ru­mour. But afore­men­tioned doc­tors who had been at­tend­ing the show prompt­ly ad­min­is­tered emer­gency care. Fran­cis­co said: "The on­ly thing is, I aint dead yet. Hal­lelu­jah." Kurt Allen and Brown Boy had ear­li­er thrilled the au­di­ence with their per­for­mances. Brown Boy opened the show and had the crowd ask­ing for more of his Dream­ing.

Allen en­snared the au­di­ence with Fox­es. Ca­lyp­so archivist Alvin Daniell said as far as he un­der­stood the re­lease was ac­cu­rate. He said: "He was at his best al­though seat­ed and had the crowd eat­ing out of his hands...He was singing a nice reper­toire. Allen no­ticed he was show­ing sim­i­lar symp­toms like what hap­pened to Na­pa...I un­der­stand he is in fine spir­its," Daniell added. "He is much bet­ter now. It would ap­pear a lot of the pain might have come from that source and they have to wait and see if any­thing sur­faces. We are hope­ful this would be the end of his pain." Along with his son, Richard, Fran­cis­co had re­turned to his New York base. Up­on ar­rival, he said his first or­der of busi­ness would be get­ting test re­sults from his doc­tor Fe­lix Ovi­a­su, who is based at Long Is­land, New York. When con­tact­ed, his wife Mar­garet Fran­cis­co said: "We have noth­ing to add. Just go with the re­lease."


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