Wounded P.C. taken to Mexico
He was injured during a shootout with bandits on the Bullet Tree Road outside San Ignacio last Thursday night, but this morning, Kevin Jacobs was flown to Mexico for additional treatment. Today his family invited News 5 to be present when he was moved from the K.H.M.H. to Ladyville and put aboard a plane.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
It had been touch and go for a few days, but over the weekend, Police Constable Kevin Jacobs started to show some improvement at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, giving his family hope
Ruby Nickell, Mother
“So far he’s improving a little. The worse part was like Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But since this morning, there is some improvement, he is resting well.”
Assistant Commissioner Maureen Leslie, O.C., Eastern Div.
“Yesterday he is totally aware of what we were asking him based on the questions that were asked of him by the doctors, so I’m very much encouraged.”
P.C. Jacobs is recovering from a gunshot he received to the left cheek. The bullet is lodged in the brain, and caused extensive damage to the upper jaw. K.H.M.H. doctors advised the family that they would need to get him out of the country to repair the injury. This morning the Jacobs’ family, friends, and representatives from the Police Department gathered at the hospital’s private ward to wish their loved one well as they prepared to send him off to a medical facility in Merida.
Ruby Nickell, Kevin’s Mother
“They need further attention for him. He has a fractured jaw that the bullet did and they will do some surgery that they can’t do here, and they need to give him further attention there.”
At the K.H.M.H., emergency medical technicians from the Belize Emergency Response Team carefully placed P.C. Jacobs into an ambulance and transported him to the Belize Defence Force Air Wing compound. There, a B.D.F. aircraft waited on the tarmac to fly him to Mexico.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, and the Officer in Charge of the Eastern Division, Maureen Leslie, has been with P.C. Jacobs and the family since he was admitted to the K.H.M.H. Leslie says whenever a fellow officer falls in the line of duty, the department draws closer together, giving whatever support they can.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Maureen Leslie
“It’s not something that we expect, in the sense that we don’t go out there expecting to be hurt in this fashion, but it is something that is a part of the job. So the officers here in Eastern Division have been visiting him constantly, and according to the doctors that has been very beneficial for him. The officers have been here and they have been very supportive.”
After bidding P.C. Jacobs well, the family watched anxiously as he was put into the aircraft.
Safely on board, the plane was ready to leave. Nurse Estell Hernandez, who flew with P.C. Jacobs, was seated next to him. His sister, Savita Torres, also accompanied him on the trip. The flight would take at least one hour and fifty minutes. As Ruby Nickell watched the plane depart, she asked the public to remember her son.
Ruby Nickell
“I would like to ask everybody to help the family to pray.”
Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
No further arrests have been made in connection with the shootout. Portillo Delcid, the Guatemalan who was also hit by a bullet, is still hospitalised in Belmopan and will be charged when he is discharged.
