Funeral services were held on Saturday morning, August 14, for 28-year-old Rosella Vivianna Romero, a domestic of Libertad, Corozal District, who apparently drowned after falling headfirst down a fifteen-foot water well in her family’s backyard in the village on Thursday afternoon.
The woman suffered from an unusual medical condition developed at the age of 19, which her family says caused her to have leave studies in business administration at Corozal Junior College (CJC) after one semester and kept her mostly at home thereafter.
Rosella Romero had told CTV-3 News in Orange Walk in March for a profile story that her strange affliction gave her headaches and anxiety attacks at first, then progressively worsened until she could not move her neck from its stiff upright position and her jaws rattled. Doctors in hospitals in Mexico and Belize were not able to diagnose the condition, and prescribed medications and injections failed to curb the condition.
On Thursday, August 12, around 12:15, she was at home in her room sleeping, with her mother Carmelita, her sister Julieta and her nephew nearby watching television. She woke up asking for her medication, but Carmelita told her it was not due until six that evening and she went back to sleep. Rosella had been to see the doctor the previous day, Wednesday, in Corozal Town.
According to her elder sister, police constable Rosario “Rosie” Romero of Corozal Formation, Rosella, unnoticed, had shortly after gone outside to the well. The family’s water pipe had stopped functioning earlier on.
P.C. Romero told us that their father, Guillermo Romero, Sr., had filled the family’s water buckets earlier that day and closed the well, but another family member noticed that the well had been partially open sometime thereafter, before Rosella’s fateful trip outside.
Rosella’s younger sister Julieta Romero, around 2:30 began to worry about Rosella when she could not be found in her room or anywhere on the family property, and a trip to the village store to see if Rosella was there (she was well enough recently to go out by herself) turned up no sign of her.
The family waited to see if Rosella would turn up, then began a search of the property after Julieta left for the store and about an hour later, Carmelita went to the well and saw Rosella’s slippers floating in the water and identified her by her clothing, a green fluorescent t-shirt and ¾ pants. The body was recovered shortly thereafter by their brother, Guillermo, Jr., who had come home during the search. The family suspects that Rosella may have somehow slipped or fallen in as a result of weakness from her medical condition, but say there was nothing obstructing her path to the well.
After Carmelita screamed and neighbors emerged to see what was the problem, next-door neighbor Dion Alison, working from above, and Guillermo Romero from below, worked Rosella out of the well feet-first, and she was given unsuccessful CPR after being taken into her room and her clothes changed.
P.C. Rosie Romero got the call at the police station in town around 3:00 and immediately came home, minutes ahead of Corozal CIB officers. Rosella’s older brothers, Vladimir and Alejandro, are attached, respectively, as a constable to traffic branch in Belize City and a corporal to San Pedro formation.
According to Rosie, Rosella’s eyes appeared black and blue and there was a bruise on her forehead and white marl dust found in her eyes, indicating that she may have struck the very bottom of the well and gotten knocked out. Official cause of death, per a post-mortem on Friday, is asphyxia due to drowning.
P.C. Vladimir Romero told Amandala that there was no suggestion of suicide, because his sister was determined to find a cure for her condition and get a good job to take care of her ailing mother.
Rosella Romero is the fifth woman involved in a freak accident from the Libertad and Estrella area of Corozal in the last week and second to die. In Estrella last Friday, village pastor Leticia Vidal was electrocuted while handling a TV antenna, while three other women, including two minors, were injured.