Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A safe­ty har­ness meant to pro­tect para­medic Anand Ram­nar­ine in­stead be­came a dead­ly trap as he fell 50 feet to his death at the con­struc­tion site of Anand Low Price Whole­sale Su­per­mar­ket. The ac­ci­dent oc­curred around 11 am at Anand's ware­house build­ing, South Trunk Road, La Ro­maine. The su­per­mar­ket has not yet opened and wit­ness­es said Ram­nar­ine was spray­paint­ing a sign as a favour to his broth­er, Adesh, when tragedy struck.

More than a dozen peo­ple were milling about at the site when the fork­lift which Ram­nar­ine was stand­ing on, sud­den­ly tilt­ed to the left side and col­lapsed, plum­met­ing him to the ground. The har­ness, fas­tened to a buck­et on the fork­lift, pre­vent­ed Ram­nar­ine from jump­ing off to safe­ty. Wit­ness Kevin Mitchell said they were work­ing in the yard when they heard the crash. "We ran out and then we saw him ly­ing on the ground with blood com­ing from his mouth. A bone from his arm was pro­trud­ing out. He nev­er re­gained con­scious­ness," Mitchell said.

As scores of passers-by stopped to as­sist, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers at the site closed the gates, bar­ring me­dia work­ers from en­ter­ing. Ram­nar­ine's fa­ther, Dhan­paul, de­mand­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

Dhan­paul said Ram­nar­ine worked as a para­medic and am­bu­lance dri­ver with Trinidad Off­shore Fab­ri­ca­tors Com­pa­ny (TOF­CO) but was re­cent­ly laid off as the job slowed. He said Ram­nar­ine was help­ing his broth­er, Adesh, paint a 125-foot sign out­side of the build­ing. Adesh is the own­er of South­zone Paint­ing Com­pa­ny.

Dhan­paul said his son had plans to fin­ish re­build­ing their home. "He was al­ways do­ing things around the house. There is a crick­et ground be­hind our home and wa­ter was flood­ing in the back. He ran a pump to pull out the wa­ter and he told me to mon­i­tor it," Dhan­paul re­called. Two months ago, Ram­nar­ine's wife, Dhan­mat­tie, gave birth to their first son, Ajnish. Moth­er of the de­ceased, Han­sra­jie Ram­nar­ine, was in­con­solable as she gazed at the body of her son ly­ing on the ground. Han­sra­jie said she got a call from Adesh say­ing Ram­nar­ine "did not make it."

"I did not ex­pect to see my son in that con­di­tion. My child did not de­serve to die like that," Han­sra­jie said.

Mean­while, po­lice of­fi­cers said the in­ci­dent may have oc­curred be­cause of prob­lems with the ma­chin­ery.

"We have to get the au­thor­i­ties to in­spect the ma­chin­ery so there could be au­then­ti­ca­tion about whether it was de­fec­tive," a se­nior of­fi­cer said. Sev­er­al em­ploy­ees were in­ter­viewed yes­ter­day. Own­er of Anand Low Price Su­per­mar­ket, Anand Rame­sar, de­clined to speak to re­porters yes­ter­day. Se­cu­ri­ty guards at the fa­cil­i­ty said "the boss did not want any re­porters on the com­pound." Sgt Dar­ryl Cor­rie and Cpl Rishi Ram­saran, of the Oropouche Po­lice Sta­tion, are spear­head­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.