Nineteen-year-old cancer patient Delmar Braham, passed away at the United States Embassy in Kingston yesterday, where he had gone to apply for a visa.
Braham, had recently published his appeal for financial assistance to go overseas for treatment, was scheduled to leave the island today, Friday February 03, 2017 for Albany Medical Centre in New York, where he was to receive further treatment.
The young man had developed a rare form of osteosarcoma, which had manifested itself as a huge tumour below his shoulder.
He found out that he had cancer last April and had to quit school at Excelsior High, where he was a sixth-form student.
Braham was with family friend Narda Hamilton, who was helping to take care of him and was also organising the effort to assist him, when he died.
“His parents were there, but I was the one who went inside with him. We went inside through the checkpoint with him in a wheelchair and went to the window. I was there and handed in his passport. I realised he was not breathing and I just started screaming,” a distraught Hamilton
“He was so close, but so far,” she said. Braham’s mother was too distraught to speak when contacted
yesterday.
“We are saddened by this tragedy and I want to express the Embassy’s deepest condolence to his family,” US Ambassador Luis Moreno said
Article Excerpts and photo Jamaica Observer
