A Routine Walk Turns Into a Medical Nightmare

It was supposed to be a routine treatment for a broken bone, but for one San Pedro resident, it turned into a life-altering ordeal. Fifty-six-year-old Generosa Esperanza Bradley says what followed was nothing short of a nightmare: a cast that was allegedly too tight, gangrene, a five-day coma, and now, years of pain and unanswered questions. Six years later, she’s preparing to take legal action against the doctor she believes is responsible. And just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, when she requested her medical records from the K.H.M.H., she claims they were missing. Bradley visited our office and sat down with News Five’s Tanya Arceo to share her story.

 

Tanya Arceo, Reporting

Back in 2020, Generosa Esperanza-Bradley was simply out for some exercise, walking across the Boca del Río Bridge in San Pedro. But that everyday routine took a sudden turn when she was knocked down by someone on a bicycle. She ended up with a broken bone and was treated at the San Pedro Polyclinic. But what was supposed to be a straightforward recovery quickly spiraled into something much worse.

 

Generosa Esperanza Bradley, Patient

“I was assisted by the doctor but he put the cast too tight and that same day November tenth around ten thirty I went back to the polyclinic in San Pedro requesting to please open the thing because it was so hard I had no circulation and the muscles were tired so I tell him to please open it or do something to relieve the pain but he said no I am sorry but I cannot cut the cast. It was just a simple broken bone. I was not supposed to enter in coma but because it was so tight I got gangrene so the following day on November eleventh I was already in coma I don’t know what time I was for five days right here in Karl Heusner”

 

According to her attorney, she has a six-year window to file her case in court, and that deadline is fast approaching. But there’s a major hurdle: she claims that when she reached out to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital to retrieve her medical records, she was told they couldn’t be found. Despite that, Bradley is holding on to the few documents she does have, including one medical report that outlines her condition when she first arrived at KHMH, along with receipts and test results. It’s not everything, but it’s what she’s clinging to as she prepares to take her fight for justice to court.

 

Generosa Esperanza Bradley

“I am suing the doctor or whoever is responsible. I asked a lawyer, a government lawyer and he told me that here in Belize, I don’t know nothing about law I only know about making food and mind my house, and that’s all and the lawyer I ask him about the issue that I have and he said here a limited due date of six years so that that’s the reason why”

 

Tanya Arceo

“You have a statute of limitations”

 

Generosa Esperanza Bradley

“That’s what he told me”

 

Generosa Esperanza-Bradley is holding on to hope, that justice will come for what she’s endured. After being diagnosed with gangrene and slipping into a coma, she says her life hasn’t been the same. Once independent, she now relies on others for even the simplest daily tasks she used to handle on her own.

 

Generosa Esperanza Bradley

“I only had an injure in my foot now its now not only my foot because of that because when I fall I could move my hands do anything and now when I wake up I cannot tie my own hair I cannot so I have to depend from other people. It’s not easy for me being an adult being an independent woman I always look for myself and due to that horrible experience that you have to clean somebody else. I am a Belizean I am originally from San Jose Succotz Cayo District born in Benque proud of being from the West and I wish that things here in Belize city change for the better for everybody”

 

It’s a painful reality, but one she’s determined to speak out about as she fights for accountability and closure. I am Tanya Arceo for News Five.