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96-year-old rescued from Middle Road blaze
Matthew Reid is counting his losses including that of his motorcar.
(Kaieteur News) – A 96-year-old woman is among eight persons now left homeless following a fire that completely destroyed a two-storey house at Lot 218 Middle Road, La Penitence, Georgetown early Sunday morning.
When Kaieteur News arrived on the scene, Matthew Reid, an occupant of one of the apartments on the bottom flat, sat on his fence processing all of his losses, including his motorcar PAN 2724. The 37-year-old, a forklift operator at Guyana Shore Base Inc., recalled that he was sleeping when his cousin, who occupied another apartment in the building, woke him up and alerted him to the fire.
Ruandra Mc Donald and Maryann Kissoon.
“The most I could have done was to go pull my grandmother out because her bedroom was engulfed already,” Reid, who shared the apartment with his girlfriend, shared. “When I got the door opened, I grabbed her and brought her down the stairs,” he said about his 96-year-old grandmother, Emelda Pollard.
Reid, who was born and raised at this location, could not say what caused the fire. “Apparently, it started upstairs but I don’t know if it’s an electrical fire or what. I couldn’t tell,” he said, adding that the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) and Guyana Police Force had earlier been on the scene to collect statements. “Right now, I am completely blank because it’s basically starting over fresh again. Everything that you worked for is gone and definitely not easy to rebuild,” he expressed.
Another occupant, Ruandra Mc Donald, was not at home at the time of the fire but when he received the devastating call at 12:50 am, he said he sped home but was still too late to save anything. “When I came, everything was in flames. I couldn’t save anything. I lost every single thing.” Mc Donald is counting all of his losses, including that of his brand-new motorbike for which he received the registration only last week.
Ruandra Mc Donald’s brand-new motorbike was consumed in the blaze.
As a welder, his tools, too, were destroyed in the fire. “I don’t know where to start from because all my tools were destroyed. I just left helpless right now. I sleep in my car last night because I didn’t have anywhere to go,” he shared. His common-law wife Maryann Kissoon told Kaieteur News that she was sleeping at the time the fire started.
“Between sleep and wake I heard a male voice calling for coolie girl. That’s what they call me, and they hitting down the door. When I do jump up, I see smoke was already in my room so the most I could have done is to pick up my two small kids and leave. We couldn’t turn back for anything,” the 34-year-old woman recalled.
Currently unemployed, Kissoon said it will be difficult to restart everything as only recently work was completed on the apartment.
Meanwhile, a neighbour, Natasha Wills, who lives across the street, called the GFS but noted that the wait was too long. “They took too long to come. Two get water, one didn’t have,” she said. “We keep calling. Half an hour going to an hour they take budday.” Wills said she was alerted to the fire after hearing her neighbours’ screams.
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