Dean Stewart had only a split second to choose between saving his wheelchair and prosthesis legs or his friend’s life after a fire started in the wooden structure he shared with six other paraplegics at the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre last Monday.

Stewart had initially returned to the burning building to save a few of his possessions. However, he abandoned that mission and pulled his friend to safety, even as he watched helplessly as the flames engulfed all his possessions on the very morning he was to begin classes at Pre-UWI (University of the West Indies).

“Mi nuh want to be any hero,” he told the Sunday Observer a few days after the fire. “Mi just had to get him out of there instead of saving mi stuff, and so mi nuh really want to talk too much about it. I just want to overcome this challenge and continue on to become a lawyer.”

It’s a dream he has nurtured since childhood, and he is confident that someday he will graduate from law school. “It is not even a dream anymore because one day I will be a lawyer,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Having been born without legs has not been without its share of challenges for the 21-year-old paraplegic. However, Stewart said he will never allow these ‘temporary obstacles’ to prevent him from achieving the goals he has set for himself, even though he is a bit distraught now that the fire has left him without a place to lay his head at nights.

So determined is Stewart that he defied a doctor’s order and showed up for school a day after the fire, even without his books, which were all destroyed in the blaze. “I don’t want to miss out on classes for even one day,” he said.

“Maybe it is because mi believe in God and I know it won’t take five years for me to recover, but maybe just a few months, and people won’t even remember that this happened,” he said, offering an apparent explanation of the source of his strength.

Stewart was only eight when his mother uprooted him from his Maxfield Avenue home and took him to the Rehabilitation Centre where she thought he would receive better care.

And although he missed home, Stewart knew he had to make the best of the situation and enjoy life as any typical teenager would. “My teenage years were a lot of fun for me, and I was never bothered by the wheelchair because that is how I knew myself ever since,” he said with a laugh.

But when he became an adult, Stewart said he lost his safe haven at the Rehab Centre as he could no longer stay at the boarding facility. Instead, he said, he started doing odd jobs, which even included begging at some point to be able to feed himself.

“When I leave the boarding area I was suppose to go home to mommy, but she had seven of us and it was hard for her, so I just had to try and take care of myself,” he explained.

He said that he and six other paraplegics were given the opportunity to stay in the building which was no longer in use. Of course, they had to find their own furniture as well as their daily meals.

“They say the building is old, and so it is up to us if we want to stay in there since we have nowhere else to go; and so, as a ghetto youth, me was just struggling to make the best of it,” he said with a smile.

His struggles were, however, somewhat eased three years ago when he met Pam Chin, a volunteer at the Rehab Centre, who along with her husband, Howard, took him under their care. They stressed the importance of education as a way out of poverty and since that day Stewart said his life has never been the same.

“Three years ago, I met an angel in Miss Chin and it was she and her husband who helped me,” he said.

Chin told the Sunday Observer that when she met Stewart she decided to help him as she was impressed with his willingness to acquire an education.

“What I saw in him was determination,” she said, “and he was brave and willing, because a lot of times when persons are disabled they just stay here at the centre. But when I say to him, ‘you want to go to HEART?’ he was ready to go.”

It was Stewart’s talent and skill as a basketball player which drew the attention of Capital Credit and Merchant Bank and made it possible for them to award him a scholarship to HEART/NTA, making him one of the first paraplegics to attend the institution.

He had gone to the academy to become a welder, but soon discovered the world of computers. Having never even sat at a computer before, Stewart never shied away from the challenge and so it came as very little surprise when he graduated among the top seven students in his class.

Not only did he complete computer studies, but he managed to pass English, one of two Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) subjects he sat in-between computer studies class. This achievement landed him a holiday job at the National Housing Trust where he worked in the refund department.

It was during this time that he was presented with a pair of prosthesis legs by the Rotary Club of St Andrew and earlier this month a wheelchair valued at US$1,000 from Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Impressed with his determination and brilliance, last Saturday Capital & Credit presented Stewart with a second scholarship, this time to sit four CXC subjects – Principles of Business, Sociology, Literature and History at Pre-UWI.

Stewart had also made plans to resit CXC Mathematics in January while completing his studies at Pre-UWI.

But just when he thought life couldn’t get any better, tragedy struck.

Last Monday, just a few hours before he would get ready for his first day at the tertiary institution, disaster reared its head, taking with it everything he owned.

Stewart said he doesn’t like to talk too much about what happened as he doesn’t want to dwell on the negative. He is more interested, he said, in getting his life back on track – starting with getting a roof over his head.

Encouraged by friends to talk about the incident, Stewart relented, explaining that as he sat outside early Monday morning he heard shouts of fire coming from inside the building. His first thought was to get inside and attempt to retrieve his wheelchair and prosthesis legs.

“When me go inside me see the place engulf with fire everywhere, so me decide say me want take out some of me things, but then me see the man (Clive ‘Mobay’ Jennings) and so me had to help him,” said Stewart.

In his effort to pull Jennings from the blaze, Stewart received burns on his thighs. But he ignored the injuries as he was determined to save his friend.

Jennings, who became handicapped from a bullet, said he had no idea where Stewart found the strength to pull him from the burning building.

But Stewart again insisted that he had no interest in being recognised as a hero. His only concern now, he said, is for things to return to the way they were before the fire.

“Me nuh really see the sense of talking about it over and over,” he said with a hint of frustration. “Me just want to know what is going to happen to me, now that I have lost everything.”

Having lost his computer, which was given to him by a good Samaritan who noticed how difficult it was for him to access the library at HEART, Stewart now wonders what will happen during his current studies.

He also lost his bed, which he said he misses the most, a refrigerator and hotplate for cooking and most importantly a roof over his head. “I miss my bed the most, with my pillows and comforter,” he said, now flashing an infectious smile.

“I am not asking for a whole heap of clothes or things like that because what I really need now is a place to live, because now I am staying on a couch at one of my friends and me get a kotch here and there at nights,” he said.

“If anything else come I will take it, but I am more interested in a place to live so I can focus on school,” he added.

Stewart is, however, delighted and grateful that Appliance Traders Limited (ATL) has promised to replace his wheelchair.

“They have promised to give me back a chair and that is the only positive thing I hear so far and it make me feel good,” he said, “because right now is a friend chair me have to borrow.”

Pamela Chin is also appealing to persons to assist Stewart with a place to live so he can be focussed on his studies.

“He needs money so he can rent a little place,” she said. “So I am appealing to persons to help, even if they don’t want to give him the money they can pay it to the landlord, but he needs to have somewhere to live.”

Chin said she has been able to get some clothing for Stewart from a donation of money made by Covenant Christian Academy.

She said he never missed classes, even when he got back pains from having to sit from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm in his wheelchair. Therefore, she wanted to ensure that he had no reason to miss classes now.

“There is just no limit for him,” she said.

“None whatsoever,” Stewart agreed.

Persons wishing to assist him can do so at any National Commercial Bank using account number 404065610.

-browni@jamaicaobserver.com