(Trinidad Express) “I heard my wife bawling, bawling, bawling out my name and I was trying my best to reach her and no matter how hard I tried, I could not reach her because there was fire everywhere. That is hell.”
This was the harrowing tale Curtis Hyde, 34, told the Express in an interview at Ward 41 of the Port of Spain General Hospital yesterday.
An argument between Hyde and a male relative over the ownership of an apartment in Trou Macaque led to the arson attack that claimed the lives of four people and an unborn child yesterday.
Hyde’s wife, Lisa Charles, 46, was one of those killed in yesterday’s arson attack.
Lisa’s ten-year-old son, Josiah Charles, is said to be in critical condition at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.
The rivalry for home ownership is said to have been sparked when Hyde’s mother, Cynthia, passed away several years ago.
A male relative of Hyde who threatened to torch the apartment on three previous occasions is said to have made good of his threat yesterday. “This whole thing, all these deaths, are as a result of a fight for property,” Hyde said.
Hyde said he was at home asleep with his wife, when he realised the apartment was on fire.
“When I realised the place was on fire, I got out of bed and climbed out of the window and into the neighbour’s apartment below,” Hyde said.
“I was naked; I just grabbed a towel, two buckets of water and ran to the front of the apartment,” Hyde said.
However, when Hyde reached the front entrance to the apartment, he realised that was on fire too and he could not re-enter the building.
“What do you do at that point, you run out of your home, leave you family and have no way to get back inside,” Hyde said.
“My wife was a real good woman. Anything I fall short in, she was one hundred per cent with me, and to see a woman like that bawl like that, cry like that, die like that, and to know it is your own blood relative do that, I can hang him myself,” Hyde said.
“She did not deserve a death like that; I wish it were me,” he said.
Despite being one of the first to leave the burning apartment, Hyde was placed on a ward at Port of Spain with several burns to his back, chest, arm and hands.
“I feel like I do not even want to live anymore, I have lost my wife, my son’s is fighting for his life, days before Christmas, this is crazy,” Hyde said.
…’If not for fire sub-officer, death toll would have been higher’
(Trinidad Express) Finding a villain for the Trou Macaque tragedy is easy. Discovering the hero may be the hard part.
According to eye witnesses, fire sub-officer Tyrone Best is one of the heroes in the tragic tale.
Best, 43, has been a member of the Fire Services for the past 22 years. He now holds the rank of fire sub-officer and is stationed at the Wrightson Road head office.
Best was the officer in charge of the fire appliance from Wrightson Road that was first to respond to yesterday’s alleged arson attack at Trou Macaque, Laventille.
“When we reached, all we saw were people jumping off the building,” Best told the Express during an interview at his hospital bedside yesterday.
Best is currently a patient at Ward 41 of the Port of Spain General Hospital. “I went down to see about the people and it was pure mayhem,” Best said.
According to eye witness reports, those trapped in the Trou Macaque apartments decided to jump five storeys to escape a fiery death.
Best said he and the other fire officers tried to steady a ladder to assist those trapped in the apartments.
Best managed to catch one of the young men who jumped from the building, eye witnesses said. “I was waiting to assist another woman and then two people jumped toward me at the same time,” Best said. He was knocked unconscious.
If not for Best, the death toll for the alleged arson attack could have been higher, eye witnesses said. “I am not a hero, I did not get to save the children but I feel glad to hear the man (Curtis Hyde) say he was happy I was there,” Best said.
Hyde, one of the survivors of yesterday’s alleged arson attack, was on the same ward as Best. “I had to save them, that is my job. I try to do my job at its best, I like to help people,” Best said.
Best suffered a concussion from the ordeal.
His fire officer uniform was placed in a bag behind his hospital bed.
Contacted for a comment yesterday on Best’s heroism, Chief Fire Officer Carl Williams said: “He went beyond the call of duty but it is hard for us to see people trapped and not be able to do anything to help.”
…fire forced residents to jump to their deaths
(Trinidad Express) When Allison James ran out of her second floor apartment at Building 2, Trou Macaque, Laventille, yesterday, all she saw were bodies scattered on the ground outside.
The bodies were of those who chose to jump from the five-storey building in an attempt to escape a fiery death.
Four people and an unborn child were yesterday killed in an alleged arson attack at Trou Macaque in Laventille.
James, 48, and several other residents have been emotionally scarred by the event.
When the Express visited Trou Macaque yesterday, James sat watching the gutted building she once called home.
“I heard a loud banging and jumped up from sleep,” James said.
She said she ran to wake up her four children who were asleep in the apartment.
“When I opened the door, the whole place was filled with smoke. You could feel the heat,” James said.
“I picked up one of those hard (wood) boards the boys had outside and I used that to shelter from the falling embers,” she said.
James said she ensured her children were safe.
Living in the apartment with James are her children—Nathaniel, 20; Ishmael, 15; Shamia, 13; and Allissa, 10.
“After we got out the apartment, the real trauma was when we came outside to see people we know choose to jump from so high up because they had no other choice,” James said.
“All I could see were bodies on the ground outside,” she said.
Member of Parliament for the area NiLeung Hypolite said counselling has been provided for residents of the area.
“This was a traumatic thing for these people to have witnessed and we have to ensure that we try to bring their life back to some kind of normalcy,” Hypolite said.
’15 years we begging for a fire escape’
(Trinidad Express) For the past 15 years residents of Trou Macaque in Laventille have been clamouring for fire escapes in their housing estate.
Community activist Natasha Arcia said she personally penned several letters to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) calling for the shortcoming to be addressed.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
If the long-standing issues had been addressed in a timely manner the lives of several Trou Macaque residents could have been saved, Arcia said.
“Fifteen years we have been talking about this issue. Up to last year we raised the issue. If they gave us the fire escapes, Lord hear me, they would have all been alive today,” Arcia said as Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal visited Trou Macaque yesterday.
“I watch a big belly woman (pregnant) jump from the fifth floor and have to leave her two-year-old child behind. I watched her. I begged them ‘allyuh throw down a mattress’. I begged the mother ‘put linen together and tie it’. You know what happened? We do not have a fire escape, we do not have a water tank. A two-year-old and a nine-month-old dead inside that window. You know why? No fire escape,” Arcia said.
“Every one of them jumped through that window. The little brother climbed out first and when he saw he could fall and die he climbed back in. I begged them ‘allyuh go and throw water on allyuh skin’. They said ‘Miss Tasha we can’t reach, the fire done on we already’ and I just watched the fire come down on their heads,” an emotional Arcia said yesterday.
“They had no choice but to throw themselves through the window, the mother was tying sheets for them to come out but because of the fire they could not go to get more sheets. So they could not do anything with the sheets and the fire was on their backs. The mother jumped out of the window with fire on her back because we have no fire escape. A basic need like a fire escape. Fifteen years we have been asking for a fire escape.”
Moonilal yesterday said the tragedy in Trou Macaque should be seen as an “opportune time” to address the safety issues in housing estates built a long time ago.
“I am told these building were built in the 1970s and over the years as the residents said over 15 years now they have been asking for fire escapes for safety designs and so on and it is an opportune time for us to look, I mean you cannot do anything to bring back people who died, but it is an opportune time to look at all these building built in the 70s to see how we can now design for fire escapes and emergency facilities,” Moonilal said.
“So what we can do is save other lives because you cannot save what is gone but you can try and save other lives. I hear the plight, these buildings have been built without proper building codes without safety, without fire exits and so on and we will have to look at that,” he said.
Laventille West MP Nileung Hypolite confirmed that the residents raised the issue of no fire escapes with him three years ago.
Hypolite said he referred the issue to the HDC.
Councillor for Trou Macaque, Joel Harding also wrote to the HDC on the issue, Hypolite said.
Angered residents lambasted Moonilal and HDC managing director Jearlean John for not visiting Trou Macaque before yesterday’s tragedy.
More than 50 people from Building Two in Trou Macaque were displaced as a result of yesterday’s alleged arson attack.
