Girl, 12, crushed, brother, 8, injured, as Aunt’s house collapses on them

Aug 19, 2017 News

– were in a hammock below
A 12-year-old girl met a tragic ending yesterday afternoon when the house in which she was spending her August vacation came crashing down on her and her eight-year-old brother at Lot 317 La Bonne Intention (LBI), East Coast Demerara. The incident happened around 15:00 hrs.
Amber and Joshua Richards were spending one week of their August holiday with their aunt, Wanita Ramgolam and her family, when tragedy struck.
According to information received, the two children were in a hammock in the lower flat of the wooden two-storey property when it collapsed on them.
The 12-year-old girl was crushed to death—her skull, back and feet were flattened. Neighbours had to use a power saw to cut the flooring of the structure before they could have gotten to her lifeless body.
Her brother was rescued and up to press time was undergoing surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
His body—from his waist down was stuck under the house and neighbours had to push a board under the collapsed structure and lift it before he could have been rescued.
The children’s uncle, Mahendra Shivtahal told the police that the house would usually shake whenever the rain fell or breeze blew.
At the scene yesterday, their aunt Wanita Ramgolam, was in tears. She said that her sister, Renita Ramgolam and estranged husband, Nigel Richards only sent their only two children to spend a week with her last Sunday and now, she doesn’t know what to tell them.
The woman explained that she had just finished taking a bath and went upstairs to get dressed and left her niece and nephew swinging in the hammock downstairs—the hammock was tied to two of the house’s posts. It is suspected that the “swinging” might have contributed to the house falling to the ground.
Ramgolam’s children, Selena and Michael along with her husband, Mahendra, were in the upper flat of the house.
“I was putting on my clothes and then I feel the house start tremble and shaking up bad and I fall on the bed then I realize the house fall down and I start hollering, and I hear my nephew calling for “aunty, aunty” and my niece screaming hard, hard,” Ramgolam cried.
She added that she wrapped herself with a towel and rushed out to see what was happening.
“When I come outside, I see my nephew crying and I couldn’t help him. We tried to lift him out, but half of his body was under the house.”
According to the devastated woman, the house covered her niece. “We only hear she screaming. We couldn’t see her. She was hollering for me, but I couldn’t save her.”
By the time neighbours got to the 12-year-old child, she was already dead.
“She stop screaming,” Wanita Ramgolam said as she burst out into tears.
The woman explained that shortly before the incident, her niece and nephew were playing with her two children. They were also looking forward for their mini vacation at her home.
When this newspaper left the scene yesterday, the children’s parents had not reached there as yet.

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