Boy, 9, electrocuted after stepping on illegal connection

Dec 28, 2014 News

Audrey Plater points to the spot where her son was electrocuted

Nine year-old Lawrence Reid had walked many times on the track that led from his mother’s home in Pattensen Sqatting area, Turkeyen to the main road in the community.

But last Boxing Day, the child accidentally stepped on one of the thin’ ‘live’ wires that electricity thieves spread on the ground and connect to their homes. He was killed almost instantly.

The tragedy happened shortly after 09.00 hrs last Friday, when Lawrence’s mother, Audrey Plater, sent him out to buy kerosene.

After 20 minutes elapsed and her eldest child had not returned, Ms. Plater thought: “This boy taking too long, and when he come back, I will beat he.”

But she said that shortly after, a woman came to her home and said “Come and see yuh son; he get shock and dead.”

Ms. Plater said that she found her son lying motionless on a pathway a short distance from her home. She recalled that an electrical wire was beneath her son’s body.

According to the woman, she pulled the wire from beneath her son and began to try to resuscitate him. A resident then took the child to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The distraught mother said that police visited the area but by the time the ranks arrived, residents had removed all the illegal connections. Police were also unable to ascertain who was responsible for her son’s death, since the culprit had already disconnected the wire from their residence.

However, Ms. Plater is convinced that the culprit is a female neighbor with whom she had a recent dispute. She said that the woman had vowed that tragedy would befall Plater’s family and she suggested that someone deliberately set the wire in the track to injure her son.

“All the time my son pass (on the track) and nothing happened.”

She alleged that a daughter of the neighbor was laughing at her misfortune and saying “ah tell you that mammy got black tongue.” Ms. Plater has two other children, including a two-year-old son.

But when asked if she would seek justice, Plater said: “Let the people go their way and let their conscience be their guide.

“If they go to jail, it can’t bring back my child. The only justice I can get is seeing him in front of me saying Mammy…Mammy…”