16-year-old miner killed as pit collapses

Apr 15, 2013 News

Dennis Barker

A 16 year old East Ruimveldt boy is the latest victim of a collapsed mining pit in Guyana’s gold fields.
Dennis Anthony Barker of Warlock Ally was pronounced dead at the Madhia Hospital where he was rushed after he was pulled from under tons of gravel in a mining pit at Pamela, Madhia around 15:40 hrs on Saturday.
Reports are that Backer and another youth identified as Scotland Pluck, 20 were the only persons in the pit at the time of the cave in.
The two were removed from the collapsed area and were rushed to the Madhia Hospital where Barker was pronounced dead on arrival, while Pluck who suffered injuries, was admitted to the institution for medical treatment.
This Newspaper understands that Pluck sustained broken limbs but is listed as stable.
Barker’s relatives were inconsolable yesterday at the Lyken Funeral Parlour as they got a view of his remains.
Barker’s mother, Derise DaSilva, was trying her utmost to brave the emotional pain of her loss when she eventually viewed her son’s body which was brought to the city yesterday.
“Is by he (Barker) de so fine mek he dead,” she said.
While the family initially waited for the body to be removed from the trunk of a car that brought it down, they conversed about Backer’s cause of death and the life he lived; all sad faces, but no tears.
However, when the body was about to be taken out of the car, family members noticed that a spare wheel was on top, leaving a dent in his chest, and loud screaming began.
“Look he condition, look” and “Ow, he is only 16. Why he had to go like duh?” were some of the utterances of his mother.
The teen’s mother told Kaieteur News “I hearing so much different story that I ain’t know which one to believe.”
A tearful DaSilva disclosed that during the last conversation she had with her son, he told her that “you ain’t gon see or hear from me in a long time and he tell me that he and dem up deh got problems.”
She said that they had an argument over her wanting him to come out the interior and go back to school but he wanted his sister to join him in the interior.”
“We had a deal, I got pregnant and couldn’t work anymore because I was real sick and he said that he would a go up and work until I could start back. Now I catch me self and telling he come he didn’t want to come. He wanted his sister to go up there with he and work too and when I told him that that is no place for her he get vex with me,” the dead teen’s mother said.
Faye Boodoo, Backer’s grandmother with whom he spent most of his life, described him as “a child like many others, but when I tell ya loving, this boy was really loving.”

Relatives mourn outside the funeral parlour after seeing Barker’s body.

Backer had been in the interior for several months.
There have been several mining pit deaths so far this year.
In January, 44-year-old Mark Wilson lost his life in a mining pit at Puruni. The father of five was pinned under tons of rubble.
Then in February, another miner, Errol Bennett 38 of Port Kaituma was killed after the walls of the mining pit he was working in at Arakaka caved in on him.
Later that week, Thycuf Xavier, 18, lost his life at Mazda Mountain, Marudi, South Rupununi, when a tunnel he was working in caved in and trapped him underneath.
In October of last year, in what can be described as one of the worst mining pit accidents in Guyana, three miners 25-year-old Deonarine Singh called ‘Chubby’, and cousins Elson Singh called ‘Papa Johnny’, 47 and Devon Barry, 22 were buried alive in a Cuyuni mining pit. Last year a total of six persons died as a result of mining pit accidents.