Fighting prison blaze through hole in wall would have been risky

Superintendent Kevin Pilgrim

-fire service took around eight minutes to arrive

Officer-in-Charge of the Georgetown Prison, Superintendent Kevin Pilgrim yesterday said that using the adjoining dorm to fight the deadly fire in the Capital A Division, where 17 inmates died last month, would have required sending his officers into a “fatal funnel.”

Counsel for the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the deaths of the prisoners Excellence Dazzell yesterday asked Pilgrim, who was testifying at a public hearing, why a bucket brigade had not been set up to attend to the fire using the hole in the wall between the A and B divisions to grant access.

Pilgrim, who took the stand at the Department of Public Service building, stated that it would not have been a wise idea, given that the hole was situated halfway down the length of the dorm, and to have sent officers into an “unknown area” posed a high risk and