“Weh mommy and daddy deh, and what happened?” Romario Manning repeatedly asked as he lay in a bed at May Pen Hospital.

“You met in an accident,” members of his family replied.

The 26-year-old Manning is experiencing short-term memory loss triggered by head trauma after he was hit by a taxi while riding his bicycle home from a shop in the Belmont area of Mocho in Clarendon last Friday.

The Jamaica Observer was told that Manning also suffered a broken neck, broken leg, and damage to his spine which has left him paralysed from the shoulders down.

According to Manning’s younger sister, Nyoka, the taxi driver, who knows her brother, had taken him to the hospital after the crash.

She said doctors at May Pen had told her, on the weekend, that her brother needed treatment available in an intensive care unit, but the hospital did not have that facility.

However, on Wednesday she reported that he had been transferred to University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) as a space became available at the ICU there.

“He was transferred to UHWI about 10:00 pm on Tuesday. It was a nurse at UHWI who called me and said a space is available. She is a family friend,” said Nyoka. “So, we went to May Pen Hospital at seven o’clock and they confirmed that he would be transferred.”

Nordia Francis-Williams, UHWI’s public relations and communications manager, confirmed the transfer.

Prior to the transfer, Nyoka had shared that her family was deeply worried, especially when they learnt, on Saturday, that Romario was in an induced coma.

“His heart rate and his blood pressure dropped and the doctors said he got tired. He was falling in and out of consciousness, so he would wake up and talk and ask what happen; and ask for his mother and father and sisters. Then he would go into an unconscious state and when he woke up again, he forgot because of the short-term memory loss,” she said.

“And because he is trying to move his neck, which is in a cast (cervical collar), he said it’s paining him. And because he’s moving his neck so much, it’s getting worse. So they placed him in an induced coma so that it will limit the pain. The doctors said his body is slowly deteriorating,” she explained.

The sister lamented the stress that the family experienced when they were unable to get Romario into an ICU.

Public and private hospitals, she said, had told them that they were full.

But even during that time, Nyoka was optimistic that her brother will pull through.

“The only thing I’m holding onto right now is faith in God, because my brother is doing the impossible right now. Many people thought he would’ve died already because of the severity of his condition, and he is holding on. Because I see that he’s holding on and fighting, I know that the Lord is carrying him through and I just have to have faith,” she said.