JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Gardener, 73, killed by trap gun

by

Sascha Wilson
28 days ago
20250125

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A rou­tine morn­ing trip in­to the “bush” turned fa­tal for 73-year-old gar­den­er Steven­son Lumy, af­ter he was shot in his leg by a trap gun in Moru­ga yes­ter­day.

Rel­a­tives said Lumy had been a “bush­man” and gar­den­er all his life and left home at 6 am. Less than two hours lat­er, they re­ceived the trag­ic news that he was shot by a pipe gun miles in­to a forest­ed area at Fi­garie Trace. Still try­ing to come to terms with his death, his wife Eve­lyn Phillip spoke with Guardian Me­dia at her Ed­ward Trace home while be­ing con­soled by her niece, Guardian Me­dia mul­ti-me­dia jour­nal­ist Da­reece Po­lo. Phillip re­called that Lumy got up yes­ter­day morn­ing, made his cof­fee as nor­mal and then left. Nev­er in her wildest dreams, she said, would she have thought that would be the last time she would see her hus­band alive.

She said an­oth­er gar­den­er told her he heard him bawl­ing hours lat­er and went to his as­sis­tance. He called the po­lice and the am­bu­lance. “He say he went to cut fig and he hear him call­ing out and he an­swered him and he say, ‘Come I get shoot here boy.’” She said the oth­er man saw Lumy ly­ing on the ground bleed­ing from his left leg near his knee.

“He (Lumy) tell him cut out his jer­sey and tie he foot be­cause he foot like it mash up and he tell him cut out the boots from he foot. He put him on his shoul­der and bring him out of the bush and bring him on the side of the road.”

Sad­ly, Lumy died be­fore the emer­gency re­spon­ders ar­rived. Re­call­ing what she saw at the scene, Phillip said, “When I go in the bush the man (her hus­band) lie down on the ground there.”

She said her hus­band had been ad­vised by his doc­tor to re­frain from ven­tur­ing in­to the bush­es. “He said, ‘Do not go back in the bush Mr Lumy. Make your lil gar­den home do not go back in the bush be­cause if you get wet in the bush there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty you will die.’ But, he tell me, ‘I stub­born you know, I go­ing back in the bush’ and he went.”

She said he was aware of the dan­gers of go­ing in the bush, par­tic­u­lar­ly since it was the sec­ond time he had been shot by a trap gun. She said hunters of­ten set trap guns to catch an­i­mals, most­ly deer.

“He knows the dan­ger, some­body pipe gun shoot him in both legs. He spent how much days in the hos­pi­tal. He like that. He like the bush. He like the chal­lenge.”

How­ev­er, she ad­vised oth­er ad­ven­ture seek­ers to be care­ful when ex­plor­ing forest­ed ar­eas. “Tell them for me please, it does have pipe gun in the bush and they have to be ex­tra care­ful. Be vig­i­lant of your sur­round­ings when you en­ter in the green be­cause you could nev­er tell where the gun is, where the trap gun is.”

De­scrib­ing Lumy as a lov­ing man, she said he had liked her since she was 13 years old and used to fol­low her around on a mule, but they on­ly got mar­ried four years ago. Their first child was born in 1979.

“That man was a lover. A lover of chil­dren, any child, but when you get rude he drop you,” she said. Lumy was the fa­ther of two and grand­fa­ther of one. His sis­ter-in-law Hy­acinth Joshua said she fond­ly called him Pa­pa Bois. “Ever since I know him he is about 70-some­thing and I al­ways know him as a bush man. They have gar­den and plen­ty land and he likes plant­i­ng and like his hands have fer­tilis­er, any­thing he plants does come re­al nice,” Joshua said. She said he nev­er ex­pressed any fear about go­ing in­to the bush. Joshua said it was un­like­ly they would ever find out who had set the pipe gun that killed him.

Mean­while, Val­lence Ramb­harat, of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team, con­demned the con­tin­ued use of trap guns. He said, “Per­sons who con­tin­ue to set traps must un­der­stand that these de­vices can be fa­tal to users of our forests and farm­lands. This prac­tice must be wide­ly con­demned and those who con­tin­ue to do so must be tar­get­ed and pros­e­cut­ed just as crim­i­nals. There ex­ists ab­solute­ly no sport in this prac­tice .”

Ex­press­ing con­do­lences to Lumy’s fam­i­ly, Rambb­harat said his team will con­tin­ue to work with law en­force­ment and game war­dens to erad­i­cate the scourge of trap guns in the coun­try, while con­tin­u­ing to pro­mote best prac­tices in the sport of hunt­ing.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored