Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 29, 2011 News
Tragedy struck yesterday evening, shattering the New Year’s plans of a Craig, East Bank Demerara family following the electrocution of a five-year-old boy.
Antuane Lovelle was pronounced dead at the Diamond Diagnostic Centre around 18:00 hours, minutes after he stepped on a severed live electrical wire in his yard at 334 Craig.
While his parents, relatives and neighbours are still in shock, they are convinced that the lad’s death was clearly the fault of the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated.
They related that the wire leading to the mourning family’s house was crudely joined in several places and was dangling dangerously for quite a while although concerns were raised with the power company on a number of occasions.
A tearful mother, Nichola Pyle, told this newspaper that she was in her house while, Antuane and his older brother were playing in the yard.
No one was aware that the wire from the utility pole had burst and was lying in the grass at the front of the yard.
The woman said that she heard her older son shouting, “’Mommy! Mommy! Antuane get blackout.”
She explained that she picked up her son, thinking that all the running that he was doing had taken its toll.
She too did not see the live wire that was lying in the grass.
“I run to de bathroom and I sap he. But I didn’t know was the wire. Is till when I holler to de neighbor fu some mentholated spirits and she come and say is de wire,” Pyle told this newspaper.
It was then that the distraught mother saw that the wire to her house was severed.
“I didn’t know nothing, because de TV was off. So after I run and I pick he up and ain’t getting nothing, I decided to carry he to Diamond, and when I meet there he was already dead,” the woman cried.
A neighbour recalled seeing little Antuane and his brother playing in the yard.
He said that he saw when Antuane suddenly stopped and appeared to be trembling. He did not know that the lad was being electrocuted. For a moment the neighbour turned away and when he looked back to where the lad , Antuane’s mother had already grabbed him and rushed him inside.
The dead lad’s mother recalled that they were always experiencing problems with the wire and it was only on Tuesday night that workers from the Guyana Power and Light Inc. were carrying out repairs to it.
“It went sparking, and up to last night (Tuesday) about 11 o’clock, GPL was on that pole out there fixing it. I hear a ladder and when I peep out, I see GPL on de post. We does get a steady blackout hey. This wire very dangerous because it piecy, piecy. Now I lost my son, my last son,” she explained.
Her sister Ainka expressed anger at the response of the power company’s workers who turned up after the lad’s electrocution.
“To top it all off, GPL send their workers to disconnect the wire and take it away. We had to tell them to leave the wire to preserve the evidence,” she stated.
The disjointed wire was collected and subsequently handed over to the police who have since launched an investigation.
“Dey hustling fuh carry away de wire but this wire is wha kill de child. This is evidence,” the dead lad’s aunt added.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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