Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A mir­a­cle! That’s what col­leagues, friends and burgess­es of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram said yes­ter­day, af­ter Bali­ram be­gan emerg­ing from a state of un­con­scious­ness, fol­low­ing his sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and UNC MP for Ca­roni Cen­tral David Lee said he sent a mes­sage via What­sApp to Bali­ram’s wife so that she could have read it to her hus­band.

Lee’s mes­sage read: “My dear friend Anil, I just want you to know that I’ve been pray­ing for you to re­turn to serv­ing the peo­ple that you en­joy. We have both have lots of work still to be ac­com­plished, and I need you to help me do it. Stay strong and con­tin­ue get­ting stronger each day, my friend. I miss you. David.”

It had been a long, hard week for Bali­ram’s rel­a­tives and friends fol­low­ing his sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt last Sun­day.

Bali­ram, 53, was dis­cov­ered by his wife hang­ing from a bungee cord tied to a beam in his Cou­va home. He had a faint pulse, and Emer­gency Health per­son­nel and po­lice fran­ti­cal­ly at­tempt­ed to re­vive him with CPR.

Bali­ram was rushed to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was ward­ed in the In­ten­sive Care Unit in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion, re­main­ing un­con­scious.

He was in­tu­bat­ed, placed on a ven­ti­la­tor and im­me­di­ate­ly giv­en a num­ber of tests, in­clud­ing CT scans.

Col­leagues in the Ca­roni Cen­tral con­stituen­cy—where his elec­toral dis­trict is lo­cat­ed—and at the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where Bali­ram worked, held in­ter­faith ser­vices for him.

Last Fri­day, hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties con­firmed that Bali­ram was re­moved from the ven­ti­la­tor and was breath­ing on his own. How­ev­er, he re­mained on oxy­gen.