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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Wheelchair-bound man escapes death

by

20140120

Wheel­chair-bound San Fer­nan­do res­i­dent Steve Brown es­caped death on Sat­ur­day night when he was res­cued from his burn­ing home by passers-by.A light­ed can­dle is be­lieved to have caused the fire which de­stroyed Brown's home.The 52-year-old Mon Re­pos man is plead­ing for as­sis­tance af­ter he lost all his pos­ses­sions in the fire.He told re­porters he was paral­ysed from the waist down and had nowhere to sleep.He said his friend was al­low­ing him to stay at his home un­til he finds a place to live.

"I would re­al­ly like a lit­tle as­sis­tance," he said.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Brown was at his home at Com­mis­siong Street, Mon Re­pos, around 8.30 pm on Sat­ur­day when he no­ticed fire in his liv­ing room."I was in my wheel­chair and I spin around when I see this bright light in the liv­ing room," he said."I have no cur­rent so I light two can­dles, one in the liv­ing room and an­oth­er in the room. When is see the fire, I was shocked. I start to call out and I tried to go back in­side, but I re­alise it too late."

Brown said every­thing hap­pened so fast he could not sal­vage his Hon­da Tra­jet taxi which was parked in his yard next to the house.The front of the ve­hi­cle was scorched and the wind­shield was shat­tered from the blaze.Brown said when he re­alised there was noth­ing he could do he tried to es­cape from the house and threw him­self from the gallery down the front stairs.He said his wheel­chair came tum­bling af­ter him.

It was this tum­bling wheel­chair that alert­ed pass­er-by Ay­on­na Charles and her moth­er who were dri­ving along Dos San­tos Street, San Fer­nan­do when they no­ticed the flames.Charles told re­porters at the scene of the fire that she saw the house in flames and "I saw a wheel­chair tum­bling down the stairs."She said she did not stop to think when she saw the wheel­chair.

"I just opened my car door and flew up and saw a hand­i­capped guy. We ran to as­sist him, we got him out on to the road and my mom called the Fire Ser­vice and with­in five min­utes the fire (of­fi­cers) and po­lice were on the scene," she said.Mon Re­pos/Navet coun­cil­lor Sha­ka Joseph vis­it­ed the scene and promised to help Brown.He said Brown will get a wheel­chair as soon as pos­si­ble.Fire in­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the scene to­day to de­ter­mine the cause of the fire.


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