Vendor fighting cancer loses everything in fire

A look of despair lingered on the face of Whyonnie Myles-Brooks as she sat inside Coronation Market yesterday morning.

Her eyes were watery and she coughed continuously. In addition to battling stage-three breast cancer, Myles-Brooks is among the dozens of vendors who lost their goods and stalls after an early morning fire ravaged a section of the market.

Surrounded by a group of women who offered her support, Myles-Brooks said she spent the past two years undergoing rigorous cycles of chemotherapy and other cancer treatment and had returned to vending six weeks ago. She said she had stocked up on market produce and other items for sale throughout the Christmas season.

"Is October gone mi finish the last set of chemotherapy and say mi a come out back. Mi lose everything including mi entire stock and mi scale. Right now mi can't give an estimate but mi lose a lot. I saved everything I have and just come out back and now mi lose back every dollar. I really don't know how mi a go manage. Mi couldn't save anything because is all the way in Clarendon I live. Is this morning (yesterday) mi come here," she said.

Another vendor told THE STAR that while she too is counting her losses, she is extremely concerned about Myles-Brooks.

"Mi feel it for enuh. Mi lose my goods too, but mi know she go through a lot over the past two years and right now, she out here and she a inhale the smoke and it nuh good for her. It really terrible because she, like myself, don't save anything. Is from mi a pickney she a sell out here and now mi a big woman. People heartless too enuh because while the fire a blaze, people still a loot we goods," she said.

Goods amounting to millions of dollars went up in the blaze that affected approximately 50 vendors who were preparing for the busy Christmas period. According to reports, at 3:10 a.m., the Darling Street police were alerted that a section of the market was on fire. Personnel from the Jamaica Fire Brigade responded and quelled the blaze.

Beryl Levy was one of several vendors who searched through the rubble, hoping to find something of value. But her efforts were futile.

"Mi lose a big fridge. Dem tings there very expensive. At Courts is over $100,000 mi pay for it. Mi lose a deep freeze and a sound system weh mi carry out here just Thursday gone. See the bag a peas deh, mi just buy that fi last mi fi Christmas. Everything weh mi buy a inna case. See the onions and potato roast deh. Mi glass case, everything gone. A two times mi come out here from morning and have to go back in because mi don't know what to do. My head hurting me," Levy said.

Christine Lowe said when she heard that her pastry shop was one of the establishments on fire, she hurried to the scene hoping to save even a few of her pots and pans. But luck was not on her side.

"Mi a wonder if a melt dem melt because not even one pot mi nuh find. Mi know the pastries would burn up but mi did think mi could get even the pots and pans. We don't have any help. We really need some assistance," she said.