Caricom Rice Mills Limited has remained silent on the death of 17-year-old worker Threeion Gittens, who was crushed to death by paddy after a storage tank gave way.
The incident occurred on February 5th at Caricom Rice Mills Limited, Anna Regina, where Gittens and two men were working.
The supervisor of the section had alerted them about a hole in one of the storage tanks. “The supervisor call us and tell us that tank get a hole and the three of us just start see the paddy start coming out from the bottom, then the tank mek crick! And the whole thing bust down. At the time ‘Blackie’ [Gittens] underneath looking up and after the thing bus down he try to run but by da time all the paddy done start falling out and it bury he,” an employee had told Stabroek News.
Gittens was found almost two hours after he was buried. He was rushed to the Suddie Public Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
This publication was told that the storage tank that broke was old.
On the following day, when Caribbean Rice Mills was contacted, Stabroek News was told that management was in a meeting and a comment would be given on the Monday after the weekend. However, on the Mon-day, when contacted, a secretary of the company said the manager was not available. Another attempt was made yesterday by Stabroek News to obtain a comment from the company and this time the reporter was told that there would be no such comments because of “incorrect information that was published in Stabroek News the day after the accident.”
Pamela Gittens, the mother of the dead teen said that as promised, the company covered all the expenses for the funeral.
“They paid for the funeral and last week they give us some forms to fill and they say we have to get a JP [Justice of the Peace] to sign and so. It seems like they want to push us around but I hope they don’t do that. We did not make any settlement or anything with them,” she explained.
Gittens’ death is supposed to be investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Department of the Ministry of Labour.
