A woman has died after she was electrocuted at a guesthouse at Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara on Sunday, during a reported power surge in the area.
Dead is Eeulah Brown, 59, of New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop. She was responding to a neighbour’s call about a sparking wire that runs to the Secret Villa Guesthouse when the incident occurred.
Brown was the manager of the guesthouse.
Reports are that an electricity pole in the area, which is outside the guesthouse, burst into flames some time after midday on Sunday following a loud explosion. The fire went out shortly after, but a wire continued to spark. According to one resident, the Guyana Power and Light at Garden of Eden was alerted about the surge, but no one there responded and attempts to contact Georgetown proved futile.
Brown was called out by a neighbour and alerted to the sparking wire, and reportedly acted on this. She went to the main switch of the guesthouse and made an attempt to turn it off and was electrocuted. She was rushed to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre nursing burn injuries to her hands, and was later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she died early yesterday morning.
Reports are that the staff accompanying Brown to Diamond had informed doctors that she suffered with high blood pressure, omitting to say that the woman had received an electric shock.
According to reports, Brown was unable to speak while she was at the hospital. The police were called in yesterday to investigate the incident and a probe is ongoing.
Management at the guesthouse was tightlipped on the incident yesterday. An employee told Stabroek News that she had no knowledge of any person being electrocuted on the premises, adding “that was not here”.
The employee said she was not at liberty to say who owned the guesthouse or whether the person was around at the time, but she did point out that “he lives in town”.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that the owner, Charles Caesar was on the premises at the time of the visit. This newspaper later contacted Caesar on the incident but he declined to comment.
A resident in the area who claims to have been close to Brown related that the woman managed to get up after she was electrocuted and was able to telephone Georgetown and report the incident, but soon after her condition deteriorated. She was later taken to the hospital after several employees from the city arrived there.
The resident said that persons at the guesthouse tried to keep the incident quiet saying that the woman was okay and was merely ailing from high blood pressure. But she said other persons who were around when Brown collapsed from the shock rebutted this.
Another resident related that Brown was a friendly woman who interacted with many persons in the area. She said that the woman always wore a smile and that she became a well-known figure in the area after she started working there about five years ago.
