Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

“Be­vaughn’s life will not be in vain.” Those were the words of Aaron Moyne, un­cle of 28-year-old Be­vaughn Joseph, as he de­mand­ed jus­tice at his fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, days af­ter he died from in­juries caused by a gas ex­plo­sion at his Pe­nal home.

Joseph passed away on Oc­to­ber 17, mere days af­ter suf­fer­ing se­vere burns to 80 per cent of his body in a blast al­leged­ly caused by a leak­ing 20-pound gas cylin­der.

 Mourn­ers packed the Boysie Boodoo Fu­ner­al Home and Cre­ma­to­ri­um in Pe­nal to pay their last re­spects.

“He died through an ac­ci­dent. He did not take his own life. He did not die of old age. He had no dis­eases that should have tak­en his life,” Moyne said.

Re­call­ing that an ex­plo­sion at Ram­co Ltd in Ju­ly left four work­ers in­jured, Moyne said such in­ci­dents de­mand­ed prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to de­ter­mine their root caus­es.

 Joseph’s death, he added, “is the af­ter­math of what could hap­pen just by peo­ple be­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble.”

He lament­ed the grow­ing num­ber of in­ci­dents linked to leak­ing cylin­ders, warn­ing that an­oth­er tragedy could strike if ac­count­abil­i­ty was not en­forced.

“We do not want an­oth­er fam­i­ly to suf­fer this fate. It could be a child go­ing in­to the kitchen, and some­thing hap­pens. So, be­cause of Be­vaughn’s life, we want to make sure that peo­ple are held ac­count­able who are sup­posed to be held ac­count­able. Of course, there would be in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that no of­fi­cials have yet con­tact­ed the fam­i­ly.

Joseph was the sec­ond per­son to die in an ex­plo­sion al­leged­ly caused by a leak­ing do­mes­tic gas cylin­der. On Sep­tem­ber 27, Debe res­i­dent Ria George suc­cumbed to her in­juries a month af­ter a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent in her kitchen.

Ear­li­er in his eu­lo­gy, Moyne said his nephew showed re­mark­able strength de­spite his in­juries and fought to live.

“Every time they prayed, his vi­tal signs went up—his heart­beat in­creased, his pulse in­creased, his oxy­gen lev­el in­creased. Isn’t that some­thing? So, he re­spond­ed. And one thing his moth­er told him: ‘Talk to God. Fight. Talk to God.’”

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, in a state­ment on Thurs­day, said Min­is­ters Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Ernesto Ke­sar have or­dered an ur­gent re­view of T&T’s Liq­ue­fied Pe­tro­le­um Gas reg­u­la­tions fol­low­ing the re­cent in­ci­dents.

The min­istry as­sured that the mat­ter was be­ing se­ri­ous­ly ad­dressed with key agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vices and Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency, to strength­en safe­ty stan­dards, en­hance over­sight, and raise pub­lic aware­ness.

The min­istry em­pha­sised that en­sur­ing pub­lic safe­ty and pre­vent­ing fu­ture tragedies re­mained its top pri­or­i­ties.