A nine-year-old boy was electrocuted on Boxing Day when he stepped on a live electrical wire in the Pattensen Squatting area, while returning home from an errand.
Lawrence Anthony Reid, a student of Redeemer Primary School was returning home sometime after 8 am after his mother had sent him to buy kerosene oil, when he walked into the path of the wire.
The wire, Audrey Plater, mother of the dead child said, was exposed on the track where her son was walking. Three of the neighbouring houses were connected to the wire which provided illegal electricity to their premises at the time of the tragedy. However, the wires were quickly pulled up and removed after the child was rushed to the hospital, Plater said.
was a toddler.
“I was cleaning up and going to make some tea when a send him to buy the kero, about fifteen minutes pass and I didn’t see he come back, so I just say a gon beat him cuz he tek lang fu come back and same time meh neighbour son run come and tell me, come see yoh son get shock up”. The distraught mother said that she ran to her son’s rescue but was unable to save his life. “I pull way de wire from underneath and start pumping he to see if he gon ketch up”.
Plater said that she left her son’s body on the ground and hurried inside for garments to clothe him to transport him to the hospital but when she returned other neighbours were already placing him into a car.
She believed that Reid died before being transported to the hospital. “He de don dead, but de boys them din want tell me, is when I reach de hospital a doctor break the news to me”, the mother recalled. “I nearly run mad when a look at meh son in the hospital, they had some white thing on he stomach and a mask on he face to get oxygen, but he de done dead.” Meanwhile, Plater said that the police told her that they do not have any evidence that illegal wires were there and cannot do anything about that at the moment since the body was also removed from the scene before they came. She said that the police told her that they can only deal with the matter she reported the night before her son died. Plater said that the report that the police were referring to was the threatening language from residents prior to her son’s electrocution.
The woman also said that the persons who occupied the houses where the wires were connected denied knowledge of the illegal connection. “In front of me and the police they deny that they had current and they saying that is everybody does use current, but is them three house had the wire connect, if them ain’t had electricity, how them does press every day and use current?, the grieving mother questioned.
Plater further said that the neighbour who had the illegal connection had threatened her the day before and they were making mockery of her after she started screaming for help with her son.
The twenty-eight-year-old pregnant mother is hoping that she will be able to gather enough money to afford a decent funeral for her son since the children’s’ father doesn’t support them.
However Reid’s grandmother who resides in the United States promised to assist with the funeral amongst a few others. The family shares a small shack in the swampy area which is owned by Plater’s mother. Due to her pregnancy Plater said, that her she was relieved of her job and her boss asked her to return after she would have delivered.
“Like I just frustrated right now, a finding it really hard, besides a can’t even close meh eye, every time meh goh fu sleep, like meh seeing meh son in front meh how he been lying on the wire.”
