The relatives of Kester Sancho are still awaiting word from his employer, who they said has not put in an appearance since he fell 55 ft to his death from an unfinished rice mill in Mahaica.
Unable to contain the tears that flowed for the loss of Sancho, 22, her youngest son, Esther Brotherson yesterday told Stabroek News that she is very upset at how he met his demise. The grieving mother stated that when she got the news of Sancho’s death, it took all she had not to “jump through the window.” The woman recalled that on Wednesday morning he told her he was going to work and left subsequently. She said she had no idea where he was going to work or with whom.
Sancho’s friend Delroy McDonald, 25, told this newspaper yesterday that he was the one who took his friend to be employed as a labourer on the construction of a parboiled rice mill in Mahaica. The distraught young man explained that Wednesday was Sancho’s first day on the job, while he has been working there for almost three months as a welder/fabricator. He said on the day in question he was working on a different section of the incomplete building, but both of them were on the upper section of the mill. McDonald continued that he met Sancho on the ground floor during lunch time, and they both had their meals, after which he (McDonald) decided to head back up.
The young man said he was just about to clamber up the vertical beams they used to reach the top, when he heard a thud. Upon moving around a pile of stones where the noise came from, McDonald was met with the sight of his friend lying on the concrete, “and I start to cry cause I know how serious it was to fall from so high straight to the hard concrete”.
McDonald said he has no idea when or how his friend arrived at the top of the unfinished building so fast. He added that upon investigation it was found that the ridging under the zinc that Sancho had been traversing did not reach straight out to the end, causing the zinc to bend under the young man’s weight and resulting in his fall.
Sancho was accompanied to the Mahaicony Cottage Hospital by McDonald, Phillip DeAbreu, the West Demerara contractor who had taken them to Mahaica to work, and other colleagues. As a result of the seriousness of his injuries, Sancho succumbed at the hospital before his mother could arrive there.
The mother of the deceased related to Stabroek News that while at the Mahaica Police Station, she was told that the building from which her son fell is about 55 ft high. The woman also related that the owner of the mill was absent from the hospital as well as the police station, and the police had informed her that they will seek him out.
This newspaper understands that Sancho is not the first employee to have perished on the job, as three weeks ago there was another fatality at the site.
A post-mortem examination is expected to be performed on Sancho’s body today and his funeral will take place on Monday.
