According to Garfield Benjamin, Section Leader of the Guyana Fire Service, by the time the firefighters arrived on the scene at the Camp Street Prison on March 3, and were able to assess the situation, the majority of the damage had already occurred and most of the lives had already been lost.
Testifying before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 3 incident that saw 17 lives lost, Benjamin stated that by the time they arrived and looked through the vents to the Capital A Division, there were only pockets of fire remaining, an indication that the fire had already burnt out. Under re-examination by Joint Services counsel Eusi Anderson, he estimated that 75% of the losses had already occurred.
When he arrived on the scene and ascended the stairway to Capital A, there were no screams coming from the front of the dorm, only from the back, near a side door. He described the interior of the building as being dark owing the buildup of smoke and stated that although he could not see the remaining inmates in the room at that time, he could hear them calling out for help.
Benjamin was in one of the first groups of firefighters to arrive at the prison on the morning of the fatal fire.
He estimated that it took his crew approximately 20 minutes to get there after they received a call notifying them of the emergency, owing to a buildup of traffic along the route. According to the log book however, which was presented yesterday by Sophia Boucher, Lead Firewoman at the Guyana Fire Service, the water tender reportedly arrived at 11:25 hrs, after having received the call alerting them to the emergency at 11:18 hrs. That same water tender had reported mechanical difficulties just 4 minutes before.
Questions were raised by attorney Glen Hanoman about the authenticity of the log book, given that the first entry recorded was dated March 2, the first day of the unrest. Hanoman suggested to Boucher that the contents of the book were fabricated for the sole purpose of being presented to the Commission and that another book, detailing the true events, exists.
The witness said that when he arrived at the prison, he could see smoke coming through the windows. They proceeded up the stairway to the Capital A Division, but were slightly impeded by the number of persons congregated there. The group constituted prison officers and inmates, whose presence, he said, to some extent affected the firefighters as they attempted to get the hose onto the catwalk. He, however, stated that the men assisted with running the line.
When the fires were extinguished—approximately an hour later by his record—a survey of the room revealed that all the mattresses of the double bunks occupying the dorm had been consumed. Bodies, badly burnt, lay on the floor, some in a pile.
By the time Fire Chief Marlon Gentle made it to the scene, the fire had already been extinguished, but the environment remained charged and tense. As he made his way through the compound, he was spat on and subjected to verbal abuse.
Gentle, before his arrival, had been monitoring the events on the scene over the Fire Service’s radio frequency. He recalled hearing reports of heavy smoke and fire and two separate transmissions instructing the firemen to “proceed with caution” as a riot was in progress.
The Fire Chief related that when he received a call from Compton Sparman, the Officer-in-Charge of Operations, he could hear chanting and various sounds echoing over the radio.
A call from another Fire Service official had informed him that the situation on the ground was a grave one and casualties should be expected. It was at that point that the Chief dispatched an ambulance to the prison and called for the Georgetown Public Hospital to deploy a triage to deal with a mass casualty situation.
