A toddler’s life was snuffed out yesterday moments after his tiny hands reportedly came into contact with a live wire at his home on the outskirts of New Amsterdam.
Jayo Lewis, who would have been celebrating his third birthday in September, was searching for sweets in his family’s yard at Mai Mai Dam, Mount Sinai, a squatting area on the eastern fringe of the New Amsterdam township, when he was electrocuted shortly after 16:00hrs.
The live wire was reportedly illegally connected.
His father, Winston Lewis, known as ‘Boxer’, a cart operator in the New Amsterdam market, said his other children had sweets in their possession on the front stairs of his home, when some fell from the landing into the yard. He said the child, the sixth of seven children, went after the sweets, and in so doing came into contact with the wire.
The visibly shaken Lewis hugged the lifeless body of his child while preparing to take him to the New Amsterdam hospital, where he was expected to be pronounced dead.
His wife Florien was overwhelmed with grief after a failed attempt to revive her son. News of the child’s demise spread like wildfire in the closely knit community.
