A father of one died yesterday afternoon after the concrete wall of a bathroom which is currently under renovation crashed down on him at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
Dead is Dilip Rampersaud called ‘Big Head’, 28, a driver of Lot 30, La Bonne Intention Railway Embankment, ECD.
Stabroek News was told that the incident occurred around 4.30pm yesterday while Rampersaud and one of his colleagues was clearing rubble in the Good Hope yard.
The building houses a storage bond belonging to importer Fisal Ali popularly known as `Reds’.
When this newspaper visited the scene yesterday afternoon, the premises was tightly secured and the collapsed wall was still lying at the eastern side of the building.
At the dead man’s home, his mother was inconsolable.
His aunt, Rani Angany, who resides a village away from where the incident occurred said she received a call from her sister who informed her that something was wrong with Rampersaud.
After receiving the message, she said she immediately rushed to the scene where she saw Rampersaud’s lifeless body covered with cloth.
“We didn’t know nothing. Is till when somebody come
and bring the message that something wrong with Dilip then we rush and go there”, Angany said.
According to Angany, the family has since received conflicting reports as to what really transpired. “One time the father seh the boss man tell he a wall fall on he (Rampersaud) and the mother seh they tell she is some concrete post fall on he, so we don’t really know is what up to now”, she related.
Ali, who imports food items from Canada, told this newspaper that Rampersaud was employed by him as a driver for over one year.
He explained that works are currently ongoing on the Good Hope building to demolish a washroom area.
This, he said, is being done by contractors who haven’t reported to work a few days now due to the rainy weather. “We had contractors who were working on the building but the contractors didn’t came to work since Saturday, they didn’t come because of the rain on Saturday…..Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday they didn’t show up so my guys (Rampersaud and another worker), they had a lot of rubble on the floor and like broken bricks so I sent two of my guys to….I sent them, I said ‘you guys just go and just heap it up and we gonna build a dam’”, Ali explained.
Ali said the other man who was present with Rampersaud when the incident occurred, related to him that he heard “crumbling sounds” like the wall was cracking and he told Rampersaud to run after which the wall fell and crushed him.
According to Ali, the collapsed wall was the remainder of an extended washroom attached to the building and which contractors were in the process of demolishing. “….because it wasn’t secured, the contractors told me this thing was going to fall off and it’s gonna hurt somebody”, he said.
“They did done take off half and the other half did left on because of the weather”, he added.
Rampersaud was the father of a daughter who is less than one-year-old. He also leaves to mourn his parents and three siblings.
