Calls Pour In to Aid Woman’s Recovery

Benefactors of a woman whose face was disfigured when robbers in Jamaica poured battery acid on her have received a surge of calls from people who read about her plight in The Times on Wednesday.

But organizers of a campaign to raise $100,000 to cover the woman’s hotel, food and medicine costs say it is too soon to determine how close they have come to their goal.

Carol Guscott of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, is undergoing a series of reconstructive plastic surgeries by doctors in Orange.

After the July 1994 robbery in the hardware store she ran, Guscott was abandoned by family and friends and evicted from her apartment by her landlord because they could not stand the sight of her.

But last March, a Connecticut woman visiting Jamaica became familiar with Guscott’s ordeal, and mobilized her church to collect donations to fly Guscott to the United States for plastic surgery.

Plastic surgeon Harrell Robinson, whose practice is based in Orange, agreed to perform the operations for free but Guscott, who is unemployed and partially blind, still needs money to cover accommodations and the ointments and other medicine she will need for the next year and a half.

Alice Powell, who attends the Kansas Avenue Seventh-day Adventist Church in Riverside, set up a trust fund for Guscott to raise nearly $100,000 that Guscott needs.

Donation information: (714) 921-2029 or (714) 921-2902.