Sascha Wil­son

Tragedy struck in Siparia on Mon­day when a sawmill own­er was killed af­ter be­ing trapped be­neath a fall­en tree.

Bishen Ram­per­sads­ingh, 46, of Jhu­lai Trace, Pe­nal Rock Road, was the own­er of Siparia Sawmill.

Ini­tial re­ports said he was cut­ting down a tree along David Jack­man Trace, Quinam Road, Siparia, around 9.20 am with an em­ploy­ee when the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

The em­ploy­ee told po­lice he tried to help Ram­per­sads­ingh, who was trapped be­neath the tree. He used a chain­saw to cut parts of the tree trunk to free him, but he was un­re­spon­sive.

When the po­lice ar­rived at the scene, they pro­ceed­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 me­tres along a dirt track, where they met the em­ploy­ee and fire­fight­ers from the Siparia Fire Sta­tion, who then led them in­to a bushy area where they saw Ram­per­sads­ingh’s body. He was tak­en to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where at­tempts to re­sus­ci­tate him were un­suc­cess­ful.

He was de­clared dead around 10.45 am.

Sev­er­al peo­ple who knew him ex­pressed shock over how he died, par­tic­u­lar­ly as he was an ex­pe­ri­enced woods­man.

One so­cial me­dia user post­ed, “One of the most ex­pe­ri­enced woods­men I have known. Ac­ci­dents hap­pen.”

An­oth­er per­son post­ed, “Such an hon­est and kind per­son. Very char­i­ta­ble and will help any­one in need. So trag­ic.”

Of­fi­cers of the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.