Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Griev­ing rel­a­tives of 43-year-old Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tors work­er Dami­an Ram­cha­ran are plead­ing for an­swers from the com­pa­ny about how he died.

“Right now, I just need my son to come home and say ‘Ma is just a dream. Ma­ma, I am alive,’” Ram­cha­ran’s moth­er Sybil Ram­cha­ran said in be­tween tears dur­ing an in­ter­view at their Phoenix Park, Cou­va home yes­ter­day. The grief-strick­en moth­er of two said the on­ly thing she knew for sure was that her son went to work on Thurs­day and died.

Com­pa­ny of­fi­cials re­mained mum yes­ter­day on the de­tails sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent.

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that at 10 am, Ram­cha­ran was walk­ing in front of a ce­ment truck on the com­pa­ny’s com­pound in Clax­ton Bay when it rolled over him.

By the time emer­gency of­fi­cials got him to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal he was dead.

His com­mon-law wife Sarah Gan­pat, 52, re­called that while she was at work she got a call from a su­per­vi­sor, say­ing that her hus­band had been bounced down by a truck and was at the hos­pi­tal. She was told noth­ing fur­ther.

When her moth­er-in-law ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal, the doc­tor told them Ram­cha­ran had died.

“I don’t have words to say. I just wish I could get back my son. Oh God my son is gone! I have noth­ing to say. I just wish I could see my son com­ing home,” wailed his moth­er.

Ram­cha­ran’s wife said he left home for work at 5.30 am on Thurs­day. He had been work­ing there for ten years as a straight­en­er/painter. She said com­pa­ny of­fi­cials were at the hos­pi­tal and lat­er vis­it­ed their home, but no one gave them any de­tails about what hap­pened.

She com­plained that they have al­so been re­ceiv­ing con­flict­ing un­con­firmed in­for­ma­tion about what hap­pened. At the hos­pi­tal, they were told he “got squeezed” and suf­fered bro­ken bones and a punc­tured lung. While Ram­cha­ran nev­er com­plained about health and safe­ty prac­tices at his work­place, she said she al­ways cau­tioned him to be care­ful.

Gan­path lament­ed, “We want to know how this hap­pened. Give us the truth. One minute we heard he was in the front, the next we heard he was in the back. So, we do not know ex­act­ly how this hap­pened... All of his cowork­ers are say­ing sor­ry, and they do not know how this hap­pened. They haven’t said what he was do­ing be­fore it hap­pened.”

She de­scribed her hus­band as a hum­ble per­son who en­joyed gar­den­ing.

“I want to know how my hus­band got his death. He did not de­serve to go like this. He was too qui­et and hum­ble.”

Gan­pat said the com­pa­ny has of­fered to as­sist with fu­ner­al ex­pens­es.

“They were here last night and they said to send the bills to them,” Gan­pat said.

The com­pa­ny has de­clined to give any in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the ac­ci­dent, stat­ing that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on­go­ing.

Mean­while, Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) chief in­spec­tor Franz Bris­bane yes­ter­day con­firmed that the au­thor­i­ty had launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and he had vis­it­ed the ac­ci­dent site yes­ter­day. The ce­ment truck has been im­pound­ed at the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

An au­top­sy was ex­pect­ed to be done yes­ter­day at the mor­tu­ary at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Cou­va po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.