The following is a Guest Opinion, from the Virgin Island Daily News, Thursday, March 13. Written by Todd H. Newman, an attorney who lives on St. Croix. Reprinted by request of Raki (Raquel Santiago-Silver).

On Monday, March 3, St. Croix icon Llewellyn Westerman went home. Every community has one or two persons who are so well known, and so beloved, that they are just referred to by one name. Llewellyn is just such a person.

A famous musician, recording artist and performer - having been crowned the Calypso King of St. Croix - expert chef, man of letters, and one of the best sailors in the Caribbean, Llewellyn can now also be known as Lazarus.

On Friday in the afternoon Llewellyn was doing what he loves best: sailing. As he brought his vessel Charis up to the mooring at the St. Croix Yacht (Club), a squall came up. He and his brother Inglore struggled to anchor the boat and lower the sails. Suddenly, Llewellyn collapsed. The first of many miracles on that Friday was that when he collapsed, Llewellyn became tangled in the sails and fortunately did not fall overboard. He was not breathing and there was no heartbeat.

Mike Webber - originally from the states but who has lived on St. Croix for many years - was on the dock at the Yacht Club and saw that something was wrong. He raced down the dock, got into the Yacht Club whaler, motored up to Charis and somehow was able to lift the lifeless Llewellyn into the boat. He ran the whaler straight on to the beach and immediately began mouth to mouth resuscitation and CPR. St. Croix native Stephanie Malanga came running over to help, as did Lisa Price, who has split her time between St. Croix and Jackson, Wyoming for many years.

The three of them, a white male from the states, a white Virgin Islander, and a woman who has loved St. Croix all her life, worked furiously breathing air into Llewellyn and pounding on his chest. While they were doing everything they could to keep blood flowing through the body whose heart had stopped, someone from the Yacht Club remembered that William Will, who lives in Cotton Valley, had recently purchased a defibrillator. A call was made and miraculously Will was home and raced to the Yacht Club with the defibrillator.

The exhausted lifesavers followed the instructions and placed the defibrillator on Llewellyn. No heartbeat registered. The defibrillator then did its job and Llewellyn’s heart began beating.

Ambulances arrived and the comatose Llewellyn was rushed to the hospital. There, Emergency Room doctors and nurses fought to stabilize their patient. A CAT scan was performed to see how badly Llewellyn had injured his head when he collapsed. At that time, a young Virgin Islands native, Dr. Keldall Griffith - who had graduated from Central High, gone on to the states for his medical training and returned to St. Croix several years ago as a cardiologist - was testifying in Frederiksted in front of the Legislature. Contact was made with Dr. Griffith, and he came to the hospital.

Despite it being Friday evening, he quickly assembled his expert team of specialists and by 7 p.m. he was operating on Llewellyn. By 10:30 that evening - to the grateful applause and tears that greeted him from those of the many Llewellyn well-wishers who had snuck their way into the hospital - he announced that he had repaired the blockages in Llewellyn’s heart.

Our amazement and joy at the fantastic set of circumstances that had resulted in Llewellyn still being alive were tempered by our fears as to what brain damage may have been done due to the long time that Llewellyn was without a heartbeat. The miracle became complete Saturday morning as Llewellyn was weaned off of the narcotics, and we instantly knew from the sound of his voice and the quick humor that indeed Llewellyn was back!

As Virgin lslanders we are many times too consumed with concerns of race and petty politics.

The events last weekend remind us of what a special place we live in, where a community of people worked together to breath life into one of our beloved residents, keeping him alive long enough for a son of our soil to perform his wondrous healing.

I am so happy to be a Virgin Islander and so proud of all who were involved in bringing Llewellyn back - we should all be proud. Every once in a while in the Virgin Islands it all works out.

Todd H. Newman

Tags: Charis+, Dr. Kendall Griffith, Kendall Griffith, living breathing miracle, Llew, Llewellyn, Llewellyn Westerman, miracle, St. Croix, Todd H. Newman, Virgin Islands, Westerman

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Island Buzz, St. Croix, Virgin Islands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.