A five-year-old girl died yesterday morning after an Ite palm tree fell on her family’s home at North East La Penitence.
Dead is Tomecia Hackett, of Buffer Dam.
The toddler’s siblings Kelly Ann, 7, and Richard, 3, who were asleep with her on top a bunk bed at the time escaped with minor injuries. Her mother, Tomika Hope, 23, and father Junior Hackett, 26, also escaped with minor injuries. The couple was asleep at the bottom of the bunk bed with their one-year-old son Julius at the time and the latter escaped the ordeal unhurt.
According to the reports, amid gusty winds along the Coastland around midnight on Saturday night, the 20-feet high Ite palm tree, which according to a neighbour had been leaning for some time, broke and smashed the Hackett’s one-bedroom home into pieces. The tree stood among four other palm trees close to a canal aback the family’s home. Several families live along the dam.
The children’s father, a mechanic by profession, was still lost for words when this newspaper visited yesterday morning but he noted that the other members of his family were ok and that they were all treated at the hospital and sent away. He said that he sustained a dislocated shoulder following the incident while his wife escaped with a few scratches and bruises.
Hackett said that he had been living at the location for some seven years, adding that he made several unsuccessful attempts in the past to obtain a house lot. He said that his wife was still in a state of shock yesterday.
According to the man’s sister, shortly after midnight on Saturday night she was asleep at her home, located some 10 metres away from the scene of the incident when she heard a loud impact. She said that she raced out of her bed and was confronted with the “brutal” sight of the palm tree “in the middle of Junior house and he and he family crying out for help”.
She said that the children were screaming at the time, adding that her brother managed to cover his one-year-old son following the impact. She said that she and neighbours quickly pulled the family out of the house but she noted that Tomecia appeared lifeless since she felt the brunt of the impact. She said that the she dialled 911 for assistance but the person on the other end of the line hung up the phone after two attempts were made to relay the incident.
Public-spirited citizens managed to ferry the injured to the hospital but a relative noted that a police patrol “stop the car which had Tomecia inside and had them waiting for more than 10 minutes and she de still breathing”. The girl was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
According to a neighbour, several trees, mainly tall palm trees measuring more than 20 feet had been “threatening” the homes in the area and residents had been calling on the authorities to cut them down. A relative of the Hacketts recalled a similar incident last May in the Freeman Street area close by in which a palm tree fell and destroyed a home which housed three families.
This newspaper had reported that on May 25th last year, Merle Franklin, her two grandchildren and their parents and an elderly relative were forced to spend several weeks under a tarpaulin-covered home after a palm tree was uprooted and fell on the family’s home. Franklin’s two grandchildren, an 18-month old boy and a 7-year-old girl sustained minor injuries during the incident.
Heavy winds pounded sections of the coastland and hinterland areas around the country on Saturday amid showers and displaced several signs and billboards.
According to the Hydromet Office at Timehri, windy conditions and cloudy spells were forecast along with occasional showers over several coastal regions and areas in Regions 7 and 1 last evening. Elsewhere, partly cloudy conditions were expected with possible passing showers. Today occasional cloudy conditions were predicted with showers and possible thundershowers over areas in Regions 2 to 5 and north of Region 6 and Region 10.
