Kevon Felmine

De­spite neigh­bours climb­ing a lad­der and hos­ing a rag­ing fire, pen­sion­er Fy­zo­ol Mo­hammed suf­fered a cru­el fate when he burned and died in­side his Di­a­mond Vil­lage home on Thurs­day night.

Mo­hammed, 73, who suf­fered from Alzheimer's, was last seen stand­ing in the mid­dle of his bed­room, trapped by the fire which res­i­dents be­lieve start­ed in the kitchen.

His son, Mar­lon Mo­hammed, 39, tried des­per­ate­ly to get him out of the house, but ac­cord­ing to their neigh­bour Ramesh Ram­char­i­tar, the fire was too in­tense.

Re­ports stat­ed that the fa­ther and son were asleep at their Pic­ton Road, Pic­ton Set­tle­ment, home when around 10.30 pm, Mar­lon, a ma­chin­ist, was awak­ened by a crack­ling sound.

On re­al­is­ing the house was on fire, he rushed to his fa­ther's room but was blocked by the flames.

Mon Re­pos Fire Ser­vices were called in, but by the time they ar­rived the house was al­ready gut­ted. Cpl Ifill, CSIs Mo­hammed and Goolcha­ran al­so vis­it­ed the scene where they along with fire fight­ers found Mo­hammed's burnt re­mains among the ru­ins.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, Mar­lon was asleep at a neigh­bour's home. Ram­char­i­tar said Mo­hammed, a for­mer truck dri­ver at Ca­roni (1975) Ltd, stood lit­tle chance of sur­viv­ing the fire.

Ram­char­i­tar said he was at home watch­ing wrestling on tele­vi­sion when he heard an ex­plo­sion and looked across to saw the back of Mo­hammed's house on fire. He said he rushed out to call Mar­lon, who was al­ready search­ing for his fa­ther.

"He was look­ing for his fa­ther in the build­ing but when the fire spread, he ran out. He re­al­ly tried to get his fa­ther out but the fire was too much. Neigh­bours came with a lad­der and hose to try to get him out be­cause he did not know where to go.

"When the guy climbed the lad­der, he saw him (Mo­hammed) stand­ing in the bed­room. He was awake but we could not reach to him. Fire ser­vices came with­in 25 min­utes but the build­ing was al­ready gone," Ram­char­i­tar said.

Mo­hammed's ten­ant Franklin Ramd­han al­so lost every­thing in his ground-lev­el apart­ment. In fact, the on­ly items that were not de­stroyed were a wash­er, dry­er and a few clothes that were hung on a line un­der the house.