HERO DOCTOR: Dr. Richard Shane Bennett, helped people in need, he implores after receiving Badge of Honour for Gallantry at King's House...The hero doctor saved his neighbor who had "About 10 stab wounds, and he also had a gaping wound to the back of his head"

BY ALPHEA SAUNDERS Senior staff reporter saundersa@jamaicaobserver.com  Tuesday, October 20, 2015    

"I really wasn't expecting all of this," Dr Ricard Shane Bennett admitted yesterday after being conferred with the Badge of Honour for Gallantry at King's House.

Hero Doctor, Dr. Richard Shane Bennett

"When I received the call from the Office of the Prime Minister telling me that I got an award, I thought it was a prank call," he chuckled.

The award, though, was most deserving, and was presented on the most fitting day -- National Heroes Day -- at the annual Ceremony of Investiture and Presentation of National Honours and Awards, because the act that led to Dr Bennett being celebrated at the official residence of the Queen's representative was indeed heroic.

It was an ordinary night in July 2014 for Dr Bennett. He thought he would have retired without event, as he had on any other night at his home in St Ann.

But the blood-curdling screams of a neighbour quickly dashed that notion, and the train of events that unfolded after rivals the best of thriller scripts.

"I was at my house and I heard him screaming for help," Dr Bennett told the Jamaica Observer shortly after accepting his award.

"Initially, I didn't realise that was what he was saying. When I recognised that that was what he was saying, I ran over there. I saw him on the ground in his own blood. He was in his yard behind the gate. I asked him what happened, and he told me that a person had stabbed him. I saw the [attacker] in the yard still, hysterical, saying yes, they had stabbed him," he recounted.

Dr Ricard Bennett displays his Badge of Honour for
 Gallantry which he received at yesterday’s Ceremony
 of Investiture and Presentation of National Honours and 
Awards at King’s House for saving the life of a neighbour
 who had been stabbed. (PHOTO: GARFIELD ROBINSON)

Dr Bennett explained that the reason he was unable to initially determine what his neighbour was saying amidst the gurgling screams, was because he was being stabbed while calling out for help.

"He had about 10 stab wounds, and he also had a gaping wound to the back of his head because the person had tried to render him unconscious by hitting him in the head. During all of that, he was calling for help," Dr Bennett said.

"I did a quick examination of him. The right side of his chest was not moving at all and there was a wound in the upper part of his chest on the right side. I did a quick examination and realised that his lung had collapsed. He was going into respiratory distress," the doctor said.

"I immediately went for my car, put him in, and headed for the hospital. I had to keep my hand on the wound. He passed out about four or five times [and] I had to keep talking to him to keep him alert. He had lost a lot of blood, a whole lot of blood," he recalled with a slight shake of the head. more