GT&T Technician electrocuted while working on utility pole

Nov 04, 2014 News

A Technician attached to the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) was electrocuted while working

Vijai Gaznabbi

on a utility pole just after midday yesterday.
Vijai Gaznabbi, 26, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was rushed after he was hurled from the utility pole he was working on.
Reports reaching this newspaper stated that Gaznabbi, a Technician (Class 2), with three years’ experience, was connecting a new service from the pole to a house at Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara when he came into contact with a Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) wire which was reportedly carrying 13,000 volts of electricity.
According to eyewitnesses, Gaznabbi, who was working alone, was hurled from the 20-foot ladder that was bracing the pole all the way to the ground where he lay panting for breath.
“People see when he fall and they run and try fuh rescue he. He was panting for breath and spitting out clot blood,” one eyewitness told this newspaper.
Gaznabbi lay on the ground for about three minutes until workers in a passing GPL vehicle rushed him to the hospital.
News of the accident spread quickly among his GT&T colleagues, most of whom ceased work and rushed to the hospital.
“All ah dem in shock. One ah dem look like if is he get shock,” a GT&T employee told Kaieteur News at the GPHC yesterday.
The telephone company in a statement issued yesterday evening said that it is saddened at the unfortunate passing of one of its employees.
The company said that Gaznabbi, who resides at 33 Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge, joined the GT&T in 2011 and held the post of Technician 11 attached to Outside Plant Maintenance, Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara.
According to GT&T, Gaznabbi died as result of an accident yesterday during the performance of his

The ladder that Gaznabbi was using lies against the pole where he came into contact with the live GPL wire.

duties in the Vryheid’s Lust area.
“We take this opportunity to express our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Mr. Gaznabbi,” the telephone company said in its statement.
Kaieteur News understands that both utility companies – GT&T and GPL – share one pole.
It was explained that the GPL wires are to be situated six to eight feet above the GT&T lines.
However, it was observed that on the pole that Gaznabbi was working on, the GPL live wire was sagging very close to the area where the young GT&T technician was carrying out his work.
GT&T said that it is awaiting a formal report on the incident.
Meanwhile, the dead technician’s mother, Indranie Singh, is still trying to come to grips with the loss of her eldest son.
She told this newspaper that news of her son’s death was the last thing she expected when he left his home for work yesterday at around 07:00 hours.
Singh explained that about 15:00 hours she received a telephone call from a male who said that he was a friend of her son.
The man told her that Gaznabbi had an accident and advised her to go to the hospital.
“The person asked me if I was his mother and I said yes. Then he told me that my son had an accident. I asked him if it was serious and he said that he will not be able to say,” Singh stated.
The woman began dressing to go to the hospital, without the slightest clue of the tragic news she was to later receive.
She said that in the midst of preparing to go to the hospital, a neighbour who is a retired GT&T employee gave a brief hint of what to expect.
“I asked him if it was critical and he said that he think so. Me and my husband went to the hospital and there we saw him lying lifeless,” the dead technician’s mother recalled.
She described her son, who has a five-year-old daughter who resides overseas, as a very loving child who never gave her any rudeness.