Thaddius Samuels was a chatty and energetic four-year-old boy, but his life was tragically snuffed out yesterday morning when fell into a septic tank at his home.
Relatives pulled the boy’s lifeless body from the septic tank in the yard of his Lot 156 South Better Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD) home some time around 8.30 am, after a frantic search for the boy led them to the area. He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where his death was confirmed.
One family member, Lennox Daniels, told this newspaper that the child was playing at the front of the yard yesterday morning with a whistle and a balloon. The family member said that as the child was playing the balloon burst.
“I told him that that was the end of it, not knowing that it would soon be the end for him”, the man disclosed. According to Daniels, the boy left and went inside to his mother, and that was the last time he saw him alive.
The man said that after a while, Samuels could not be found and family members searching for him. He said one relative last recounted last seeing him playing at the back of the yard in the vicinity of the septic tank and a search of the area led to the discovery of the child’s body.
Daniels said that the septic tank was always covered.
The child’s grandmother, Gail Best, told this newspaper that she was not at home at the time the gruesome discovery was made since she had left home very early that morning. According to her the death is hard for her since this is the third death in her family in less than six months.
She said Thaddius was the younger of two children her daughter Allison Best had given birth to. Best said that her grandson was a “very active” child who was always be on the go.
He was a student at the Vryheid’s Lust Nursery school.
Stabroek News was told that the child is a St Lucian national but came to live in Guyana when his mother returned here about two years ago. His father currently resides overseas.
The body is at the hospital mortuary and a post-mortem examination is set to be conducted tomorrow, relatives told this newspaper.
