JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Three-year-old dies in blaze

Mom mis­counts res­cued chil­dren dur­ing fire

by

20140529

Res­i­dents of Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve, Sea Lots, be­lieve the life of three-year-old Javier De Fre­itas could have been saved had the Fire Ser­vices re­spond­ed prompt­ly in­stead of in­sist­ing they need­ed po­lice pro­tec­tion be­cause the com­mu­ni­ty was deemed a crime hotspot.De Fre­itas died in a blaze that com­plete­ly de­stroyed his home Wednes­day night but res­i­dents, who formed a buck­et brigade but fought in vain to save him and the house, blamed fire­fight­ers for his death.Speak­ing with the me­dia yes­ter­day, the res­i­dents' spokesman, who iden­ti­fied him­self on­ly as Andy, dis­missed the fire­fight­ers' rea­son for not dis­patch­ing ap­pli­ances to the scene as soon as they got the re­port."Down here is a hotspot? When was the last time some­one got killed here?" a vis­i­bly up­set Andy asked."Who con­tained the fire? Is the same peo­ple in the vil­lage. This is pure ne­glect. That hurt­ing the vil­lage. No gov­ern­ment not help­ing... they on­ly want pub­lic­i­ty. This is a se­ri­ous time. If the vil­lagers wasn't vig­i­lant more peo­ple would have died."

Andy told the me­dia around 11 pm he heard a sound and then saw fire in the roof of Berna­dine Hep­burn's home. By the time he raced to the house, he said, she and her chil­dren were out­side and had told neigh­bours every­one was safe­ly out­side.He said two min­utes lat­er, while neigh­bours were us­ing a buck­et brigade to douse the flames, a head count was done and they re­alised Javier was miss­ing.Andy said he and oth­ers had to re­strain one of Hep­burn's sons from rac­ing back in­to the burn­ing build­ing to save his asth­mat­ic sib­ling.Hep­burn, 41, who did all she could to save her­self and her 13 chil­dren, was yes­ter­day still blam­ing her­self for Javier's death.She said she and her chil­dren, rang­ing in ages from 11 months to 22 years, were asleep when the fire be­gan. She said her son was sleep­ing on a bot­tom bunk bed and every­one thought they all had made it out safe­ly be­fore the fire, since each child was awak­ened.

Hep­burn, who works at Church's Chick­en, Glen­coe, re­called that around 11 pm she was asleep when she heard a crack­ling sound and then saw smoke and fire in the roof of her wood­en home."I lost every­thing," she said, cry­ing. "The fire ser­vice took two hours to come. Every­thing burnt."I find I could have done more. I take up the chil­dren. I have old­er sons–22, 19, 17, 15–all were asleep and with the heat and the smoke we just rush out­side. The neigh­bours came in, break down the door and form a buck­et brigade and put out the fire be­fore the fire ser­vice reach."She said by the time fire of­fi­cers ar­rived they had noth­ing to do be­cause the house had al­ready been com­plete­ly de­stroyed, the fire ex­tin­guished and her child was dead.

"I don't have a clue what I go­ing to do and go now," Hep­burn said.The au­top­sy re­port by pathol­o­gist Dr Valery Alexan­drov yes­ter­day showed Javier died of smoke and soot in­hala­tion.

Fire ser­vice: We were busy

In re­sponse to the res­i­dents' com­plaints yes­ter­day, Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Na­yar Ram­per­sad said in a phone in­ter­view his men were at an­oth­er fire in Tu­na­puna when they re­ceived the call.He ac­knowl­edged that crime had neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed some com­mu­ni­ties and said when­ev­er his of­fi­cers were threat­ened they sought the as­sis­tance of the po­lice.He de­nied, though, that was the case on Wednes­day, say­ing: "Where life and limb is at risk we will re­spond and not put that the area is a hotspot as a front not to do so."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored