Stricken with cancer, pensioner Joseph Richards, 69, could barely walk and could not speak properly, so when a fire broke out in his house, he could not save himself.
Even though he dragged himself from the drawing room to the yard, the fire caught up with him, burning him alive.
Firefighters arrived on the scene, but by the time they trekked downhill to the house, it was well alight.
Speaking to Guardian Media, Richards’s son Stephan Richards said he was broken-hearted when the firefighters moved a piece of galvanised metal and saw his father’s charred remains crouched almost in the yard.
“He couldn’t move properly to save himself. He didn’t make it,” Stephan said.
He revealed that the house did not have electricity.
“My father used to light candles and use a torch in the house. I gave him a deeya on Saturday and he told me to bring stuff for him to drink and eat. I saw him around 4 PM on Saturday. Then this morning, I got news that the house was on fire,” he said.
He said when he got there, everything was already well alight. “All I could do was break down. I didn’t think this was what I was coming to see. He was sleeping in the drawing room but he crawled to the yard in the front. The fire caught him there, and those were his last moments.”
Stephan said the pensioner was released from the hospital less than a week ago.
“He was never treated badly; everyone was nice to him. But recently he lost his voice, and when he spoke, you could hardly hear him. So even when the fire caught and he tried to call, nobody would have heard him,” Stephan added. Meanwhile, closest neighbor Wayne Fredericks of Hermitage/Caratal Road, Claxton Bay, said he was sleeping when he heard some popping noises. “I was so sleepy and tired; I thought people were outside. Then I heard a loud explosion. I jumped up and walked outside, I could see the whole house burning. Everything was burning, the roof was still up, but there was nothing we could do,” he recalled. St Margaret’s Police are continuing investigations.