What started as an afternoon of play last Friday for Miguel Samuels, his siblings and cousins at the home of his great aunt Leonette Thompson at 894 Victory Valley, Wismar Linden, ended in mourning.
Recounting the day’s events, Thompson said she was not feeling well and had retreated to her bedroom along with one of her daughters.
At the time, Miguel and a few of his cousins were left on the verandah of the single flat house–as usual–to play. Around 5:10 pm, Thompson she was alerted by the screams of, “pull he out, pull he out.” “Right away I jump up to go and see wah happen but my big daughter reach before me, just to see deh whole landing falling pun Miguel,” she said.
Thompson said that they quickly removed the concrete blocks from the baby and rushed him to the Upper Demerara Hospital, a short distance off. “Up to when we tek he to the Wismar hospital (Upper Demerara Hospital) he was still alive but he was unconscious. [I] understand that he died on deh way to the Mackenzie Hospital,” Thompson explained.
According to her, at the time of the incident Miguel was standing in the yard on the outside of the veranda, while his siblings and cousins were playing on the inside. She said that some of the children bounced on the walls of the verandah while playing and it eventually gave away, falling on the infant.
At the time, the child’s mother Wonda Samuels was at work in an interior location. She left Miguel and his three older siblings in the care of her mother, Esther Williams. Esther said that she would usually leave the children with her sister until she returns from work in the afternoons. “Is help out meh sister does help out till I come home. When deh big one come home they does collect Migie and deh does come home and eat and go back,” Williams said.
Miguel would have celebrated his second birthday on the 16th January 2010. He was born in Cayenne but migrated to Guyana with his mother Wonda, shortly after his birth. His parent and grandmother are currently making funeral arrangements since they were advised that a post-mortem was not necessary because of the child’s age and the way he died.
