RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Tragedy struck in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, af­ter a work­er from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty died af­ter be­ing buried alive in­side a trench about a mile from his home.

Fa­ther of two Kern Eti­enne, 39, of Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do, died af­ter a mound of dirt col­lapsed on top of him as he was stand­ing in­side a 12-feet trench near the San Fer­nan­do Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty at Cipero Road, near the Cross Cross­ing Over­pass.

Eight of Eti­enne’s col­leagues fran­ti­cal­ly clawed through the dirt to try and save him, but by the time he was pulled out he was bleed­ing from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Speak­ing at the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day, his twin broth­er Kerdelle said Eti­enne was part of a team that was do­ing emer­gency re­pair works con­nect­ing a sew­er line from the Li­cens­ing Of­fice to a main at Cipero Road, San Fer­nan­do.

“I spoke to one of the co-work­ers, who said Kern was like his re­al broth­er. That co-work­er was the one who told Kern that the mud was cav­ing but then all the mud end­ed up on top of him. The co-work­er went down and tried to dig him out. About eight of them start­ed to dig him out and they raised his head. Then the back­hoe came,” Kerdelle said.

He said the in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by the fam­i­ly was that prop­er safe­ty mea­sures were not in place.

“They didn’t put things in place for them to work there. Blood run­ning through his ears and nose, plen­ty blood. He was not talk­ing, he was dead in the hole. When they car­ried him to the hos­pi­tal, they cov­ered back up the hole. Why?” Kerdelle asked.

Eti­enne’s moth­er, Joyce Grant-Roberts, said he was sup­posed to have start­ed work­ing on the project since last week but had ar­rived late for the job and was told to re­turn to the site yes­ter­day.

“They had sent him home. I told him when things hap­pen, trust God. I told him to be care­ful and go with God. He told me to send food for him,” she re­called.

Grant-Roberts said she was at home when she got a call that Eti­enne had an ac­ci­dent at work.

“They said to come to the hos­pi­tal. When I went up there with my son and daugh­ter the doc­tor came out and took us in a room. He told us Kern wasn’t re­spond­ing and they had tried all they could try to save him but couldn’t,” she re­called.

She said WASA of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly and of­fered con­do­lences.

Eti­enne was mar­ried and had two chil­dren.

Robert-Grant said al­though they got back his clothes, his wal­let was still miss­ing.

In a state­ment late yes­ter­day, WASA con­firmed that Eti­enne was part of a crew car­ry­ing out emer­gency re­pair works on a sew­er pipeline in the area when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred, trap­ping him in the trench.

WASA said he was rushed to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment, where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

WASA ex­tend­ed sin­cere con­do­lences to Eti­enne’s fam­i­ly, friends and co-work­ers and promised to pro­vide all the re­quired sup­port.

WASA said a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be con­duct­ed by the au­thor­i­ty and the rel­e­vant agen­cies.