Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
Man electrocuted while making illegal connection
“There will be no Christmas for me and my family and I don’t know how we will survive with my husband gone.” These were the utterings of grieving housewife Sursattie Paul yesterday as her husband’s body lay covered with a sheet several hundred meters from her home.
From all accounts Rampaul Paul, 35, a forklift operator employed at John Fernandes Limited, was electrocuted while making an illegal electrical connection to his Diamond Housing Scheme Squatting Area, Sea Dam home.
Dead: Rampaul Paul
Speaking from her shabby cottage situated among a slew of others of similar fashion, the woman said Paul left home about 10:00hrs to “fetch water” on the other side of the sea dam.
She never imagined that minutes later he would be dead but that was the reality she confirmed when she ran from her house to where the body of her family’s main breadwinner lay. Though being strong for her children whose ages are eleven and seven years old, the woman nursed busted toes and twisted ankle from the run to confirm her worse fears.
Standing in the doorway with unsettled watering eyes she repeatedly said “He dead, he dead I can’t believe this, but it’s true, he dead.”
It is common in the area for persons to run wires across the canal which is filled with overgrowth and Paul is the latest of four persons to be electrocuted while attempting to make an illegal electrical connection over the years.
Recounting events, the aggrieved woman said “I was sewing inside then I hear somebody say come see if is me husband get electrocuted and when me run, me see is he dead on the ground.”
At the scene, the dead man had a bulb in his hand and some wires leading from the canal. He also had a large role of scotch tape on the other hand. A cutlass and a wire nipper lay close by.
As far as the wife is aware, Paul had no reason to be involved in any connecting of any illegal wires as her house is void of electricity and she is adamant that he left home to fetch water.
However, a female resident said that she was washing clothing in her yard when she saw Paul fixing wires close to the trench.
A police rank examines Rampaul Paul body close to the canal from which the electrical wires are run as his relative looks on
She told Kaieteur News “When he done at the front he go around the back and I went inside then I hear a man shouting, ‘He dead, that man dead’ and when I come outside I see he on the ground.”
“Life was tough now tougher times are ahead,” said the dead man’s wife who kept shaking her head in despair.
Several GPL staffers were at the scene when this publication arrived and they reported that they had to cut the electricity supply briefly following the incident.
Prior to this electrocution two men and one woman lost their lives while making illegal connection across the canal in the area. A cow was also electrocuted in the canal.
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