MONTEGO BAY, St James – Former police officer Errol Campbell ‘rose’ from among the dead 44 years ago, stunning doctors as well as family members, who were initially told that he had died on the way to hospital.

In the heat of the infamous 1963 Coral Gardens incident which claimed five lives, the then 23-year-old Campbell and two of his colleagues, Superintendent Scott and Detective Corporal Melbourne, were taken to the hospital.

In the bustle of the emergency room, Campbell who had been brought in with his dead colleagues, Scott and Melbourne, could quite easily have been counted among the fatalities. His skull had been split opened, allegedly by a machete-wielding Rastafarian. In fact, a portion of the left side of his brain, which had been severed by the machete, still clung to his skull from an odd angle, according to reports.

However, one discerning doctor noticed that Campbell was still clinging to life – just barely.

“There is life in this one,” the doctor reportedly said.

At the doctor’s alert, speedy arrangements were made for Campbell to be flown from the Sangster’s International Airport to the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston.

Forty-four years later, Campbell’s family are still grateful to that doctor. Had he not recognised that Campbell had not succumbed to the skull-splitting blow, allegedly delivered by one of the Rastafarians in the group, the ex-cop wouldn’t be with his family today. History, too, wouldn’t have the benefit of his version of the horrific events that led to a wide-scale crackdown by the state on the Rastafarian culture following the alleged murder of a gas station owner by a member of the Rastafarian community.

Campbell recounted his memories of the incident in the slurred, barely audible tones of a man weakened by paralysis. His story, which was nothing short of horrific, had to be translated by his brother, Mark.

“Our family considers it an enormous injustice that has been meted out to this young man who was at the dawn of his life at the age of 23,” Mark Campbell said.

“A bright man, with prospects for career in the force being incapacitated and rendered to a life of inactivity. We feel more than a little bit hard done by when we now hear the Rastamen complaining that they are the ones who were victims of an injustice because here is a young man whose life has been changed permanently,” Mark continued.

Anxious not to appear bitter, Mark told the Sunday Observer that his main interest at this point is to set the record straight.

“We have entertained no acrimony… we just think that the record, the history of the country must correctly reflect that Rastafarians were not the victims of any oppression as it were at the time. Whereas they think that they might be the victims of oppression, there is tangible evidence that injustice was inflicted on others,” he said.

Five people, among them two policemen and the owner of a gas station in Coral Gardens, an upscale community in Montego Bay, were killed during the Coral Gardens incident, which was commemorated by the Rastafarian community two weeks ago.

At that time, the Rastafarians said they would use the event to demand an apology from the Government and the Opposition for the abuse meted out to Rastafarians, many of whom were hunted down, trimmed, imprisoned and brutalised during the 1963 incident.

The murders were reported in the press as having been committed by two Rastafarians from the communities of Salt Spring and Flower Hill in St James.

Campbell, then a 23-year-old rookie cop, was stationed at the Barnett Street Police Station. Ironically, although he was off duty that fateful day, he took up his colleagues’ invitation to join them on a response operation to the reported murders.

On arriving, Campbell recalled, the police party was confronted by a group of Rastafarians waving hatchets and machetes.

The lawmen instructed the Rastafarian rebels to drop their weapons. The men submitted to the cops’ demands but on discovering that the lawmen’s guns were not loaded, they allegedly retrieved their weapons from the ground and attacked the police.

In the melée that followed, the lawmen scampered for cover, but Campbell fell to the ground. He was reportedly set upon by one of his attackers who allegedly stood over him and chopped him repeatedly all over his body. One of the blows split open his skull, severing a portion of the left side of his brain and sending it flying. This wound consequently rendered the right side of his body dead.

Someone at the scene had the foresight to scoop up Campbell’s severed brain fraction and put it inside his skull, before he was placed in a vehicle with his two dead colleagues and taken to the hospital.

Meanwhile, a number of the wounded cop’s friends drove to Ashton, Westmoreland to inform his relatives that Campbell had been killed.

When his parents arrived in Montego Bay, they were mistakenly informed that their son had died on the way to hospital in Kingston.

A glimmer of hope came later that day, however, when news broke that he was alive, albeit in such critical state that it was rather unlikely for him to live.

The following day, the chief surgeon reported that Campbell was miraculously still alive, much to the awe of the five-member team that operated on him.

After several months in the University Hospital, he gradually started improving.

He was later transferred to the Mona Rehabilitation Centre – now Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre – where he spent several more months until his release in December that year.

Since then Campbell, who is still confined to a wheelchair, has been assisted by supportive relatives.

“We have entertained no feelings of revenge,” said Campbell’s brother.