Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A Debe man is now in crit­i­cal con­di­tion af­ter at­tempt­ing to res­cue his five-year-old grand­son af­ter a fire broke out in their home at Con­go Vil­lage, Ra­mai Trace, Debe.

Po­lice said around 9.10 am on Sat­ur­day, 68-year-old Jairam Bal­li­ram­s­ingh, who lives with his wife, son, daugh­ter-in-law and two grand­chil­dren, was down­stairs in the home when he be­gan to smell smoke.

He rushed up­stairs in search of his grand­son and saw a so­fa in the liv­ing room en­gulfed in flames.

The child had al­ready es­caped the blaze, and Bal­li­ram­s­ingh man­aged to run out of the house short­ly af­ter. He is cur­rent­ly be­ing treat­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for burns and smoke in­hala­tion.

Of­fi­cers of the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of FSO Arindell, re­spond­ed and ex­tin­guished the fire.

The fire de­stroyed the ceil­ing, so­fa set, cur­tains, book­shelf, and elec­tri­cal wiring in the liv­ing room.

When con­tact­ed, Bar­rack­pore West/Debe coun­cil­lor Nicholas Kan­hai said the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly and was work­ing to pro­vide as­sis­tance. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the cause of the blaze.