A fish cleaner was killed yesterday, after a derelict concrete wall crashed down on him in Albouystown, in the city.
Dead is Lloyd Jeffrey, called ‘Matlock,’ who was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). Jeffrey, of Broad Street, Charlestown and ‘A’ Field, Sophia, sustained a broken neck while his feet were said to have been broken in several areas, a hospital source noted.
Jeffrey’s friend Dennis Abrahams told Stabroek News yesterday that he was at home at Hill Street, Albouystown around 4 pm when he heard a loud crash outside his home, close to the corner of Hill and James streets. He said that someone informed him that the derelict wall had fallen on his friend, Jeffrey, and he noted that he later saw the injured man lying on the parapet close to the wall, with parts of the infrastructure on the man’s body.
He said that he was told that Jeffrey was sitting with his back bracing the wall then it came crashing down on him. Abrahams noted that the man appeared to have died on the spot. He said that the father of one remained under the wall and he noted that two police vehicles visited the scene “but they just drive up peep and drive off.”
Abrahams, who accompanied the injured man to the GPH, told this newspaper that he was surprised at the police officers’ “lack of professionalism.” According to him, “I come out and see everybody watching he, like dem ain’t want touch he.”
He said that Jeffrey worked at the Meadowbank wharf as a fish cleaner and he would also do odd jobs around the city.
The man’s sister Shellon Velloza told this newspaper that Jeffrey was the second of her nine siblings to have passed away this year. She said she was the youngest child of her mother, who died when she was a child.
The man’s aunt, Waveney Pillay, was also in a state of shock when this newspaper visited her at her Sophia home. She said that Jeffrey would visit her “every now and then and I would provide meals and so for him, he was like my own son.”
The man leaves to mourn a son and his siblings and he is expected to be buried later this week.
