Belize: Haitian man survives vehicle fire

CMC – In Belize a 31-year-old, Haitian national remains in a critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH), after reportedly setting himself on fire last weekend.

Davidson Estiverne received various degrees of burns to the body when he set himself on fire inside a sports utility vehicle (SUV) and media reports said that prior to the act, he had been complaining about being overwhelmed with debt.

Surveillance footage from the area shows him fully engulfed in flames as he alights the vehicle.

“A bizarre twist of event happened that initially, we received the call for a vehicle fire whereby a Haitian guy, a Mr. Davidson, 31 years old, we prematurely got the information he got burned trying to extinguish the fire,” said Station Supervisor of the National Fire Service (NFC), Kenneth Mortis.

But he said following an in-depth investigation it was discovered that “this gentleman actually tried to take his life by igniting himself in his vehicle.

“Now, I must tell you that suicide attempt by fire is one of the worst ways to go. You will find yourself incurring fire burns to various portions of your body in varying degrees and you will find yourself in debt medical-wise.

“The other flipside to that, if he survived the attempted fire burn, then your life expectancy is limited because unfortunately, we do not have any institution that deals with these fire burns over a period of time,” Mortis told reporters.

“I really don’t know what Mr. Davidson was thinking about. We all know that he mentioned to his girlfriend that he was experiencing heavy financial debt. It is something that he figured he just couldn’t take the burden on no more. Truth be told, Mr. Davidson, you’ve just now officially racked up debts,” the NFC supervisor added.

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