KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­ready bur­dened with health chal­lenges, Gas­par­il­lo sib­lings Ram­nath and Sookeah Bheem met a trag­ic end yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter a dev­as­tat­ing fire con­sumed their home along Bonne Aven­ture Road.

Ram­nath, 64, a stroke sur­vivor who had mo­bil­i­ty dif­fi­cul­ties, and Sookeah, 79, who re­lied on a wheel­chair and crutch­es fol­low­ing mul­ti­ple leg surg­eries, were un­able to es­cape the blaze that start­ed around 4 am.

Fire­fight­ers ex­tin­guished the fire and lat­er dis­cov­ered Ram­nath’s re­mains near the liv­ing room, close to the front door. Of­fi­cials be­lieve his body fell through the burnt-out floor of his bed­room above. Mean­while, Sookeah’s re­mains were found in her bed­room at the back of the house. A Mer­cedes-Benz truck parked in the yard was al­so dam­aged.

Res­i­dents lament­ed that the sib­lings’ live-in care­tak­er was not at home at the time of the fire. Neigh­bour Gail Pope said she was awak­ened by the sound of break­ing glass and ini­tial­ly thought peo­ple were throw­ing bot­tles dur­ing a fight. Alarmed, she stayed in­doors un­til she heard a ve­hi­cle stop abrupt­ly out­side. Peer­ing out, she saw flames em­a­nat­ing from the back of the house. She be­lieves the sound she heard was the win­dows shat­ter­ing due to the heat.

Still in her night­clothes, Pope ran in­to the road, cry­ing and shout­ing to alert neigh­bours.

“I didn’t hear any cries for help,” Pope said.

“If they died, they must have been over­come by smoke in their sleep. They were el­der­ly and could not help them­selves—one in a wheel­chair and one re­cov­er­ing from a stroke.”

Pope al­so mourned the loss of the sib­lings’ dog, which was tied near the front of the house. She said the com­mu­ni­ty was usu­al­ly qui­et and peace­ful, adding that by the time fire­fight­ers ar­rived, the en­tire house was en­gulfed in flames.

An­oth­er near­by res­i­dent, Mavis Far­row, re­called wak­ing up at 5.15 am to the sounds of break­ing ob­jects and Pope’s screams.

“My pores raised—I felt it deep in­side,” Far­row said. Run­ning down the road to help, she saw the fire rag­ing through the house and alert­ed neigh­bours, who con­tact­ed the emer­gency ser­vices. As some­one who had known the sib­lings for years, Far­row ex­pressed her grief at their loss, re­mem­ber­ing con­ver­sa­tions shared at their home.

The sib­lings’ live-in care­tak­er Martha Yee­wah, hired by their broth­er, told re­porters she was away for the night. Yee­wah, who had worked with the sib­lings for the past two years, said she had planned to re­turn ear­ly yes­ter­day to ac­com­pa­ny Sookeah to Port-of-Spain for a new wheel­chair. In­stead, she re­ceived a shock­ing call from her grand­son around 4.53 am, in­form­ing her that her em­ploy­ers had per­ished in the fire.

Rush­ing to the scene, Yee­wah found the house gut­ted and emer­gency re­spon­ders still at the site. She said she had spo­ken to Sookeah on Wednes­day, ask­ing her to pre­pare for their trip to Port-of-Spain.

“This is heart­break­ing,” Yee­wah said.

“They were won­der­ful peo­ple. I nev­er had any is­sues with them—they were al­ways kind to me. It’s an un­bear­able loss.”

The fire left Yee­wah with­out a place to stay, as her be­long­ings were de­stroyed in the blaze. Among the few items re­cov­ered were doc­u­ments, clothes and a Bible. Yee­wah said she might have to live in her car un­til she finds al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Re­flect­ing on her tragedies, Yee­wah re­called los­ing her hus­band and son in a 2006 ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent, in which four peo­ple died. She was the lone sur­vivor of that crash, mak­ing this lat­est loss all the more poignant.

Emer­gency re­spon­ders have yet to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of the fire. How­ev­er, res­i­dents re­port­ed no signs of elec­tri­cal sparks un­til the flames reached the front of the house.