Latest update February 20th, 2025 12:39 PM
Senior citizen dies in Diamond fire
By Zena Henry and Rehana Ahamad
The tiny community of Little Diamond was plunged into shock last night when an 82-year-old woman was burnt to death in an early evening blaze.
Cynthia Persaud who lived alone in the bottom flat of her Lot 95 Little Diamond home was discovered slumped next to her burnt out bed by neighbours who had made a valiant attempt to save her.
Cynthia Persaud
According to reports, neighbours smelt smoke and later saw a small fire in the wood and concrete structure in which Persaud had resided all her life.
But their efforts to enter the building were hampered by iron bars that secured the entrances of the house.
From all indications, the fire was caused by a little “flambeau” that the pensioner always used at nights since the house had no electricity.
One neighbour, Jewan Sookoo, said that he was sitting nearby when he started to smell smoke. The man said he noticed flames emanating from the house and immediately raised an alarm.
“After I smell de smoke I see fire coming from de house and I holler ‘fire, fire’. But before people could come I run in de yard to see if I could get in the house but all de entrances de bar up,” Sookoo explained
Residents subsequently formed a bucket brigade while others tried feverishly to break into the sealed house with a sledge hammer.
Another neighbour said that they shattered the walls and broke windows to gain access to the elderly woman. He claimed their main concern was not to save the building, but to find the woman who they knew was in the building.
One of the other persons who assisted in outing the fire said that when they entered the house, they immediately started to look for Persaud. They made the gruesome discovery several minutes later when one of the men stepped on the woman’s burnt foot.
“We know nobody nah live upstairs but after we nah see she pon de bed we guh upstairs but we nah see nobody. Is when I come down back me mash something and when me look down me see is she.”
The men suspected that Persaud must have awakened during the blaze and in an attempt to escape the fire, fell off the bed. The men said that when they found her she was lying on her side with her hand still clinging to the head of the bed.
The woman had collapsed earlier in the day. A female neighbour picked her up. The neighbour reportedly warned the elderly woman not to go back into the house. She said that she advised the woman to spend the night at her sister’s home, not very far away.
Cynthia Persaud leaves to mourn her younger sister, Juliet Morgan, and her family, and a brother who resides in Canada.
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