A 17-year-old carpenter died yesterday morning when a stairway being built at a house at Coldingen, East Coast Demerara (ECD) crashed down on him.
Dead is Travis Mangal, a fifth form student of the Golden Grove Secondary School, ECD and of Lot 350, Jagan Street, Enterprise.
According to reports, around 8:30 am yesterday, the teenager was dismantling several “form boards” which were placed to keep the stairway intact when the structure fell on him. The lad was working with a man at a house under construction at the time.
Two labourers working at a house in proximity to the building where the incident occurred told this newspaper that Mangal and another man were “loosing out the form board from the step and he (Mangal) been standing under the step”. He said that he heard a loud crashing sound and when he ran to the scene, he observed the teenager lying under the structure moaning in pain as blood gushed from the head injuries he sustained.
He said that it took several minutes before he could have been pulled out from under the rubble. “He lose a lot of blood and by the time they coulda get he out he been done gone”, the man added.
Persons at the scene criticized the type of material which was being used to construct the home where the tragedy occurred. The steel rods which were being used to strengthen the concrete work on the building were not of the quality used for concrete work.
The quarter–inch steel rods broke at the top of the structure where it met the floor of the house. The rods were also placed almost on the outer section of the concrete as opposed to being located within the structure to strengthen its holding capacity.
When this newspaper visited the man’s home at Enterprise, his father and other relatives and friends were erecting a structure for a wake last evening. His mother stared into the sky as she lay in a hammock while other relatives gathered to sympathise with the family.
The man’s teary-eyed father, Kalicharan Mangal related that yesterday morning his son left home to work on the house in high spirits.
He said that less than an hour later, he received a call and was informed that a stairway had fallen on his son and that he was trapped under the structure.
He said that when he arrived at the scene, a crowd had gathered and according to him, his son appeared dead.
The man related that his son, who is the third of four children, wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination this year and he was awaiting the results. The man noted that in recent years his son developed a liking for carpentry and masonry and he would “ketch he hand when school close so he could raise money fa buy he school stuff and help out we family”. He said that Travis started working with the contractor on the house where the incident occurred earlier in the year.
Mangal’s relatives described him as a kind and caring individual who worked hard to assist with his family’s needs on weekends and during the holiday season. They said that he was also a devout Hindu and was an integral member of the religious community at Enterprise.
