Miner who died in pit cave-in had nearly 20 years experience

The body of 42-year-old Nolan Lindie was brought out of the Mahdia area yesterday morning and family members are now awaiting a post-mortem examination to be performed on his body before laying him to rest.

Lindie, originally of Fort Nassau, Berbice River, died on Saturday morning after he was covered in a mining pit that collapsed in an area called White Hole in the Mahdia backdam.

Yesterday, two of his brothers, Stanly and Waldron Lindie who worked with him at the same mining camp, described the now dead man as someone who was never afraid.

Nolan Lindie
Nolan Lindie

He had been working in the interior for almost 20 years and had almost made the area his home as he only returned to the coastland on short trips.

It was around 10am on Saturday he became trapped in the mining pit in which he and four others were working at the time. While they managed to scramble out of the hole he was not so lucky. Stanly recalled that he had gone to transact business and was returning to the mining site when he received the tragic news. It took a few hours for the man’s body to be retrieved.

Both his brothers, who would have been the closest of his 12 sibblings as they worked together, said that the news was even more shocking as only two days before another minier-Rocklyn Solomon-died under similar circumstances.

Stanly said it appears as if Lindie became stuck as the pit caved him and this prevented him from trying to reach safety.

“He had on boots and is like when the mud start falling in he try to move but like he foot get stick down and dem other boys calling he and they just see he deh standing up…he couldn’t move,” Stanley said at the Lyken Funeral home yesterday.

He said the event was severely tramautising for one of the workers who said that he saw the terror in Lindie’s eyes as he realized he was going to die.

“He said ‘nobody ain’t see wah me see’ because he deh there and is like he watching Nolan and when the mud keep going he watching through like a crease and as the crease get smaller and smaller he watching Nolan and Nolan watching he until he couldn’t see anymore,” the older brother said.

Nolan was the youngest of 13 children-four girls and nine boys- and siblings have taken his death very hard as they said they never expected the youngest to die first.

His sister-Micklyn Lindie who is the eldest of the 13 siblings-broke into wails as she viewed her brother’s body at the funeral home.

“Ow me brother, ow me baby brother look how a seeing you, why you didn’t come leh me see you before,” the woman said as she screamed.

It is expected that he would be buried on Thursday but the family have not decided on his final resting place. It is believed that he would be returned to Fort Nassau where both of his parents-Lionel and Doherty Lindie-are buried.