Three firefighters from the Skeldon Fire Station are nursing serious injuries at the New Amsterdam Hospital (NAH) after their fire tender collided with a car and toppled into a culvert at No 52 Village, Corentyne.
Driver of the truck, Hugh Gray, 37 of No 50 Village and his colleagues, Jimmy Noble, 30, of Line Path, Skeldon and Junior Carpen, 27, of Canje were rushed to the Skeldon Hospital where they were treated.
They were subsequently transferred to the NAH in an ambulance. The driver of the car, a Raum, has been taken into custody at the No 51 Police Station. Both vehicles have also been impounded. The accident occurred around 10.30 am.
Reports are that the car which was coming in the opposite direction had just overtaken another vehicle and ended up in the path of the fire tender when they crashed.
The truck turned turtle and toppled on its side into the concrete culvert resulting in the occupants suffering injuries.
A source from the NAH told Stabroek News that two of the men were conscious while the other was in a semi-conscious state. The source said too that the men were suffering from “cervical trauma.”
The team of fire officials was on their way to investigate a fire that occurred at the mandir at No 48 Village around 2 am on Thursday.
Members of the mandir told this newspaper that the fire was set by a man of unsound mind who is presently in custody at the No 51 Station.
They had formed a bucket brigade and managed to extinguish the fire which resulted in about $1.5 M worth of damage.
A woman who lives next to the facility, Bhanmatie ‘Baba’ Jethu, 54, said she heard loud crackling sounds and when she looked out she saw fire coming from the back of the building.
She immediately alerted the other members.
Upon entering the building they saw the man who appeared to be in his 40s sitting on a pile of sponges. The man who had never been seen in the area before entered through a glass door.
He stood up, raised his hands in the air and told them he had “surrendered.” He told them that he had to “sit there until the place finished burning.” He said too that “Lord Krishna showed me the way…”
Two of the members tied him up and contacted the police while the others successfully battled the blaze.
The police arrived promptly and arrested the man who gave his name as Leyland Morgan known as ‘Eye Lash.’ He said too that he was from Sophia in Georgetown and also provided the police with a telephone number for his mother.
Members had also summoned the fire tender but it never arrived at the scene. Yesterday a member went with his lorry to the fire station to call the officials.
He said they left ahead of him and when he passed he was shocked to see that they had crashed.
Jethu said when she saw the damage in the mandir she started to “holler.” She said the man apparently spent a long time in the building because he “took off all the “saris from the deities (murtis) and hang them up.”
He also broke all of the large pictures of the deities and removed coins that were used for offerings and stuffed them in his pants pockets.
He then broke a bottle containing ghee, poured it in the back of the building where a quantity of saris, sheets, religious books, drums, a juke box and other items were stored and set them on fire.
