When elderly Turkeyen resident Sewsankar was pulled from his burning home early yesterday morning, family members and neighbours who had watched firefighters battle to free the man for nearly half an hour breathed a sigh of a relief.
However, their relief was short-lived as the 76-year-old remigrant died soon after being pulled out of his bathroom by two firefighters, who were heard screaming to their colleagues that he had a pulse. Sewsankar had survived the 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. He had been on the 34th floor of one of the buildings at the time of the attack.
When Sewsankar’s body was lifted out of the house, villagers started screaming for an ambulance but there was none, which prompted family members to later criticise the response. The man’s body was subsequently placed in the tray of a police pickup truck and taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corpora-tion, where he was officially pronounced dead.
Up to yesterday, the origin of the fire was unknown and the fire service had launched an investigation.
Residents said around 11:45 pm they heard an explosion and saw flames quickly engulfing the Lot 33 Third Street house. The fire caused a temporary power outage.
Around 11:50 pm, five minutes after the blaze started, firefighters responded to a call that a house was on fire in Turkeyen, said Joseph McDonald, the fireman in charge at the scene.
He said the Alberttown, Campbellville and Central fire stations responded, dispatching over 20 firefighters.
Because the house was heavily grilled, Mc Donald said, it prevented them from gaining access to Sewsankar, who was trapped in the bathroom of the two-storey home. He said the grillwork left no space for escape, forcing them to cut to them to reach him. “It was very
