A Clax­ton Bay man and his daugh­ter are call­ing for help af­ter their wood­en home col­lapsed af­ter be­ing hit by a van which re­versed in­to their yard last week Sat­ur­day.

The van is owned by a promi­nent hard­ware deal­er but since the house col­lapsed, noth­ing has been done to as­sist them.

Sam­nar­ine Ram­per­sad, 72, and his daugh­ter Sher­ry Ann Ram­per­sad, of St Johns Trace, Clax­ton Bay, are now ask­ing for help to re­build their house.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ram­per­sad said he was pick­ing plums in his front yard when he saw the three-tonne truck re­vers­ing.

“It hit the front post and the house start­ed to rock. The dri­ver did not stop but I man­aged to get the ve­hi­cle num­ber. I told my daugh­ter to run and she jumped down the four steps be­fore this part of the house fell down,” Ram­per­sad re­called.

With no sup­port at the base, the rest of the house col­lapsed.

Ram­per­sad said he went to the St Mar­garet’s Po­lice Sta­tion and was ad­vised to speak pri­vate­ly with the hard­ware own­er and reach an agree­ment.

But Ram­per­sad said he called the hard­ware own­er sev­er­al times to no avail.

“The po­lice­man told me to go to the hard­ware own­er and come to some agree­ment and if they did not have an agree­ment, then come back to make a re­port. I tried to get in con­tact with him and when I didn’t, I went back to the sta­tion but the po­lice told me it is a pri­vate mat­ter, they say it is out of the po­lice’s hands,” Ram­per­sad re­called.

“I feel very dis­traught be­cause my house fell and I have nowhere to stay right now. I’ve start­ed suf­fer­ing chest pains and I end­ed up in hos­pi­tal this week. I have to join back the clin­ic and have a CT scan. I would like to get back to my own house.”

Mean­while, Sher­ry-Ann said she was dis­ap­point­ed at the ac­tion of the dri­ver.

“I was in the liv­ing room when I see the ve­hi­cle re­vers­ing in­to the yard, dad­dy called and say run. For those few sec­onds, it was like life and death be­cause I wasn’t sure what was hap­pen­ing. I thought it was an earth­quake but then I saw the truck and I saw the num­ber plate. The dri­ver just sped off, he didn’t ask any­thing, he just sped off,” she said.

See­ing her child­hood home col­lapse was ter­ri­fy­ing, Sher­ry-Ann added.

“This is where I was born and where I took my first breath. To see the house fall was a hor­ri­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ence,” she added.

The house had been in a di­lap­i­dat­ed state be­fore the in­ci­dent.

A neigh­bour who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said if some­one con­tributes ma­te­ri­als to re­build the house, the com­mu­ni­ty will as­sist the fam­i­ly in re­build­ing it.

Cou­va Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Hen­ry Awong al­so said the cor­po­ra­tion can as­sist the fam­i­ly in clear­ing out the rub­ble. The hard­ware was closed yes­ter­day and the own­er could not be reached for com­ment.

Any­one want­i­ng to con­tribute build­ing ma­te­ri­als to the fam­i­ly can con­tact 303-8797 or 342-2739.