Guy Rigottier-Gois, the French national who died in the Konawaruk backdam last Friday, may have thought he struck gold when he took he took the unusual decision to enter an excavated pit during heavy rainfall to take further samples.
Rigottier-Gois, 56, a geologist who was one of the six directors of the River Gold Guyana Inc, died at around 12:15 on Friday last at White Water Backdam, Konawaruk. Police on Saturday said they were investigating the death.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday Gladstone Fitz Alert, another director of the company, said that according to reports he received from other employees of the company, Rigottier-Gois was given some samples for testing from the third pit dug for the day and he apparently saw something in the sample that looked promising.
Alert said reports indicated that the man decided to go into the pit to do some physical checks and he was let down along with the bucket in which the first set of samples was brought up. “From reports he was in the pit bent over doing some testing when the soil around the pit, which was loose, just caved in,” the man said. He added that since the area was experiencing heavy rain fall for the last few days it is was unusual for anyone to go into the pit but Rigottier-Gois must have seen something in the samples that caused him to go down into the pit.
He said workers also reported that the man woke up that Friday morning in an “unusually jovial mood” and as such it is tragic that before the day was out he was dead. His colleagues took a while to get him out of the pit as they were forced to dig the soil out and they had to do it carefully so as not have caused him any further injuries. But by the time he was hauled out, he was already dead.
Alert said River Gold Guyana Inc, a mining company which is registered in Guyana, came into existence last June. Rigottier-Gois came to Guyana in October and started working with the company last December. The company has not started mining as it is currently in the “prospecting” stage, checking the different areas to ascertain which would be better for mining.
He said Rigottier-Gois, who was born in France but spent many of his years in French Guiana, should have been back in Georgetown since last week but he decided to stay to take some more samples. His wife has since been notified of his death and she flew into Guyana yesterday to identify the body and decide whether his burial would take place in French Guiana or here.
Alert said the police went into the area, which is about six hours from Mahdia, yesterday.
