By Kidega Livingstone

Retired Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro may have succumbed due to excessive internal bleeding from a deep cut sustained after the cleric collapsed and fell unconscious in the bathroom with water gushing on him for nearly one hour without public realisation, a narration from his personal doctor suggests.

It was at 7:00pm on Saturday March 28 when Dario Koron, a medical professional specially assigned to the late retired Archbishop went to visit him at his residence in Hai Tijaria. He was told to wait in the sitting room, which he patiently did.

But Koron’s patience ran out upon noticing that the cleric had taken longer than usual in the bathroom, prompting curiosity on what could be happening.   

“I was told to wait for just very few minutes, His Grace will come from his room and join me,” Koron recalls. “I stayed in the sitting room for one hour because Father Samuel told me that Lukudu was in the bathroom taking shower,” he told mourners during Lukudu’s funeral service in Juba.

“I started to feel uneasy and I called Samuel again and said Samuel, what is going on because one hour is too long? Samuel himself went to the bathroom and came back saying the late His Grace locked the door from inside,” Koron continued.

 When it clocked 8:20 pm, the doctor says his worry swirled. “I was so worried and I said there must be something wrong and indeed when somebody went and peeped through the window, the late has collapsed in the bathroom,” Koron said, adding that “water was pouring on him [the bishop] for an entire one hour”.

Collapses in bathroom

Emotional but calm, the medic told the mourners that desperation kicked in as they sought to break into the bathroom to find out the situation of the cleric.   They sent a person who entered through the window and opened the door, only for them to find that the cleric laying helplessly on the floor unconscious with blood oozing from what Koron described as a deep cut Lukudu sustained from an object when he fell.    

“There was a mixture of blood and water. When checked I found that he had a very deep cut in the axillary around the arm. The first thing I did was to check his pulse but there was nothing. I called him [but] he could not respond, his body was extremely cold because water was pouring on him for one hour,” the medic narrated.

Realising the unconscious and worrying state of the cleric, Koron sought to organise a place to lay bishop and warm his body before transferring him to Freedom International Hospital.

“Immediately I called for Father Abe and the rest. An Ambulance was brought and we evacuated him to Freedom International Hospital and the first thing we did was to take him to the theatre to monitor the injury he sustained,” Koron recalled.

But something was amiss at the Freedom International Hospital. Lukudu was not responding to any pain even when the surgical operation was done without anaesthesia.

Koron said the cleric’s blood pressure was high late that Saturday. On Sunday morning, he called one of the physicians at the hospital who came and offered medication to lower the blood pressure.

After the blood assessment, the medics arranged for a brain scan at Juba Teaching Hospital. The situation was no long looking impressive.

“I saw the picture, I was not happy because I knew that His Grace had a terrible intra-cerebral bleeding, which for an 81-year-old, was extremely worrying,” he said.

He asked Father Abe to alert the leadership of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Stephen Ameyu reported to the scene before a recommendation was made to put Lukudu under Intensive Care Unit.

Airlifted

The deceased was airlifted to Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday after efforts from medics at the two national hospitals in Juba yielded no positive result.

“His Grace was flown to Nairobi he and taken straight to the ICU on arrival. The initial report indicated that he was somewhat stable,” recalled the personal doctor. 

“On Tuesday the report indicated the same. On Wednesday, through the connection of Father Abe, I managed to speak to the doctor taking care of him [Lukudu] in the ICU, Dr Slivery Style, who is a critical care consultant.  He said they were dealing with a situation so critical for an 81-year-old man who sustained this kind of injury,” Koron revealed.

It was on the same day that Dr. Slivery Style told the South Sudanese medics that Lukudu has reached a vegetative stage, meaning his brain was dead. Koron said that phone call shuttered his hopes and darkened his world.