Yvette Cade shares horrific
story of domestic violence
COLE BAY--She had a moving, horrific story to tell of a survivor of domestic violence, and the audience had to fight back tears.
Yvette Cade (32) of Suitland, Maryland, in the US, was set on fire by her ex- husband at her workplace in October 2005. A living tale of domestic abuse, she came to St. Maarten a year later to tell her story to the people of St. Maarten, to bring her message to everyone, men and women.
On the stage of Club Ambiente at Port de Plaisance, Cade, the guest of Peridot Road Foundation, was not afraid to show her pain and scars, external and internal. Her story started like many others: an abusive husband beating her up, poking her with a knife and hitting her with a hammer. Then the verbal abuse came, which she said was just as bad.
Her life of that and her now 13-year-old daughter in jeopardy, she got a restraining order against the ex-husband in June 2004. However, a judge lifted that order in September 2005 and three weeks later the ex-husband showed up at her workplace, a T-Mobile store in Prince Georges County.
The man said he loved her and then threw gasoline over her, pouring it from a Sprite can. She tried to run, but he chased her, crushed her foot and then set her on fire. She ran outside in flames, came back into the store and somehow made her way to the back to the washbasin.
“I was blind, I could not see, but Jesus stepped in. I only felt the flames for a minute. God was with me and led me to the faucet and I started putting water on me.” She said she had felt comforted by Jesus’ and God’s presence all the while.
Afraid that the ex-husband would also harm her family, she gave two men who came up to her to offer help her cell phone and asked them to call her mother, her sister, her daughter’s school and the police. As she was hyperventilating and her airways were starting to close up, a man appeared with a towel and put out the fire. Cade had been on fire for nine to 10 minutes, her skin literally burning off her body.
Clinging to life, but still speaking, she was taken by helicopter to a hospital. Most of her skin was devastated, more than 400 toxins were in her body as a result of the burning and she was in critical condition and doctors fought to save her life.
Cade said she was alive because so many people had prayed for her, because God had never left her side, and because she had wanted so badly to live, for her family and to be able to tell her tale. “I didn’t care what I looked like. I was so glad to be alive,” said Cade who chose not to have complete reconstructive surgery so she could be a living message for others.
“I have walked in the valley of death. I never thought I was going to leave. I am here to educate you, help you to identify right from wrong. I have a powerful message and it has become the purpose of my life. It is with joy that I’m standing here. No matter what creed, colour you are, it can happen to you and it is wrong,” she said.
Cade’s story moved everyone present at Friday evening’s event, Peridot Road Foundation’s fourth observance against domestic violence.
Founder Gracita Arrindell said violence against women was not cool and not okay.
The event featured several spiritual and cultural performances highlighting the topic.
Cade leaves the island today, Monday.
St Maarten vacation rental
