Relatives of Guyanese Pearl Amanda Cornelius, one of the six young women who died from smoke inhalation while trapped in a shopping plaza in Barbados following a robbery last Friday, are questioning the length of time it took for the island’s fire fighters to gain access to the building.
The child’s grandmother, Sandra Gobind, told Stabroek News yesterday from her Georgetown home of the agonizing hours she spent on the phone with her daughter as they attempted to get word about the 18-year-old who worked at the store part-time as she was preparing to go to college.
“My daughter called me about 7 pm [on Friday] and she said ‘Mommy pray for me’ and when I ask her why she said Amanda get trap in a building that on fire,” the grieving woman told this newspaper yesterday. She said from the first call until up to about 11 pm there were back and forth phone calls among family members. They received the tragic news some time after 11 when Amanda’s body along with the bodies of four others was pulled out of the Campus Trendz store in Tudor Street, Barbados.
The grandmother said her daughter Nicola and her son-in-law are questioning the many hours that elapsed before the fire fighters eventually broke a hole in the concrete wall to gain entry and finally removed the bodies. She said the fire fighters kept saying that the smoke was too much for them to attempt to enter the building. Her frustrated son-in-law and a friend had attempted to gain entry through the back of the building during the agonizing wait but they were greeted with concrete walls and had to eventually retreat because of the smoke.
Following Friday’s tragedy, which was caused by two bandits who had earlier robbed the establishment, Barbadians, in national shock and disbelief, on Saturday called on the authorities to bring back hanging, a Nation newspaper report had said.
Also among the dead were two other Campus Trendz employees and three shoppers.
The other employees were Kellisha Olliviere, 24, of Wellington Street, The City and Shanna Griffith, 18, of Pile Bay, Spring Garden, St Michael.
The shoppers were Kelly-Ann Welch, 24, of Montrose, Christ Church; Tiffany Harding, 23, of Upper Collymore Rock, St Michael; and Nikita Belgrave, 23, of Shop Hill, St Thomas.
The Nation reported Chief Fire Officer Wilfred Marshall of the island as stating that if the Tudor Street store had had an alternative exit, he reckoned the six women would have been able to escape or be saved from their fiery death.
Gobind said her granddaughter only worked at the establishment on Fridays and Saturdays as she was awaiting “her papers to go to college”. She said Amanda, who she described as a jovial and very nice person, and Shanna Griffith were best friends.
The woman said Amanda was her mother’s only daughter and she had a seven-year-old brother.
She said Amanda, who had been living on the island with her parents for the past ten years, along with other relatives had planned a trip for this month as a surprise for her (the grandmother’s) birthday on September 27.
“Now everyone will still come but not to celebrate to mourn,” the grieving woman said yesterday.
She said the young woman’s body is expected in the country some time after next week Tuesday as a post-mortem examination will have to be performed on her body and a service will be held in her memory in the island before the body leaves for her homeland.
“I don’t know what to say. That was my daughter only daughter and now she dead, I don’t know how to comfort my daughter it is just so sad,” the woman said.
Two of her other daughters have since travelled to the island to be with their sibling during this tragic period.
