Church-go­ers to the Nistar Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Cou­va yes­ter­day were left trau­ma­tized af­ter beloved parish­ioner Richard Harold Sita­hal col­lapsed and died at the church dur­ing the morn­ing prayer ses­sion.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to Sita­hal’s fam­i­ly, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Pres­by­ter­ian Sec­ondary Schools’ Board of Ed­u­ca­tion, Gary Samai said he was shocked to learn of the un­for­tu­nate tragedy.

Of­fer­ing words of com­fort to Sita­hal’s wife and two chil­dren last evening, Samai said the sud­den death was even more sad as Sita­hal’s par­ents, re­tired Rev­erend Harold Sita­hal and his wife who is the or­gan­ist at the church, were both present at the time.

Sita­hal, 50, worked as an area man­ag­er at the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

The in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly oc­curred around 10.30 am dur­ing the ser­vice which was be­ing con­duct­ed by of­fi­ci­at­ing Rev­erend Win­ston Ramkissoon.

Samai was un­able to share spe­cif­ic de­tails but said Sita­hal was known to be suf­fer­ing with heart-re­lat­ed ail­ments.

While it is be­lieved that he died of a heart at­tack his ex­act cause of death will on­ly be con­firmed when the au­top­sy is per­formed.

Con­firm­ing the Pres­by­ter­ian Church will be pro­vid­ing coun­sel­ing ser­vices to the trau­ma­tised con­gre­ga­tion, Samai said they be­gan reach­ing out to af­fect­ed per­sons since yes­ter­day and this will con­tin­ue through­out the week.