An Anguillian cricketer, currently handicapped by an injury to his spine, is grateful to many people and organisations for having risen to his assistance and says he is making good progress.

Clarence Fleming-Rogers at the pondfill

“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” said 35-year-old Clarence Fleming-Rogers, otherwise known as “Tocho” of “Blackie.” He was at the time sitting in his wheel chair, surrounded by a number of village friends, at a wind ball practice session on the Pond Fill at Island Harbour this week.

His interest in wind ball cricket is understandable. He represented Anguilla for a number of years as a member of the Leeward Islands Cricket Team and played in a number of islands. He served as a coach for the Island’s Wind Ball Team and was Coach of the Island Harbour Razor Massive male and female Teams.

The positive thinking sportsman, whose injury has affected feeling and movement from the hip area down, says that for him life must go on. He has received treatment abroad and is hoping that one day he will recover.

He recounted how he came by his injury, in June last year, while returning to Island Harbour from a function. “The driver was driving pretty fast. I told him to slow down about three times,” he recalled. “He didn’t slow down so I lay down in the back seat because I knew that something was going to happen. I felt when the car was sliding around the corner [at the George Hill Roundabout] and slammed into a pickup that was parked. My legs went dead when the car hit.”

Fleming does not have any ill feelings toward his first cousin, Rolando Webster, who was the driver of the car. He only thinks he should have slowed down when he requested him to do so “because,” in his words, “you don’t run risks with other people’s lives in a vehicle.”
The injured cricketer was taken out of the car by some persons whom he did not know and was taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital. He said he was told that his spine might have been further injured by the way he was removed from the vehicle.

He was flown to Barbados where he spent three months at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and underwent an operation. From there he went on to England at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Aylesbury, where he had three months of therapy and was told that the operation he had in Barbados had been done “pretty well.”

“I am feeling good, I have no pains, thank God for that,” he said, stating that the accident was a rough one for him with three young sons to work for. Apart from his involvement in cricket, he has worked in construction and as a painter.

“I can’t walk, but I hope that one of these days I will get up from this chair,” he said. “In England they said it will take up to a year or two years before I get back the real full feelings down below. They said that eventually things will start happening from there.” He is of the view that there is some improvement in his condition as the feelings “have gone down a bit lower.”

Clarence went on: “I am not taking on anything. It is just that I miss the cricket. Accidents happen, but I think that was a bit on the careless side. It probably could have been avoided. As I said, “I am not worrying because that won’t make things better. Where there’s life, there’s hope. You have to be strong and have faith.”

He added that there was a long list of persons and organisations to thank for their kind assistance to him – so long that the contributors were too many to mention. Those coming to his mind included Trevor Lake, Luke Thomas, the Health Authority, the Ministry and Department of Social Development, those who made pledges and donations and Heartbeat Radio and staff for their fund-raising efforts.

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