Cori Baynes

Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions took a fa­tal turn for a group of friends when one man died af­ter be­ing in­jured while burst­ing bam­boo. Dead is Gary Gue­var­ro, 23, of Pa­pourie Road, Di­a­mond Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do. Gue­var­ro, who was em­ployed as a safe­ty of­fi­cer, was burst­ing bam­boo around 7.30 pm on Wednes­day, when it ex­plod­ed and ig­nit­ed his clothes.

He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries yes­ter­day. At the fam­i­ly's home, rel­a­tives strug­gled to come to terms with his death. Anup Ra­manan, 32, who was with Gue­var­ro at the time of the in­ci­dent, said he had been "burst­ing bam­boo for years and noth­ing like that ever hap­pened." Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Ra­manan said the friends were tak­ing turns burst­ing the bam­boo. When he (Gue­var­ro) tried to burst the bam­boo, it split and the flames caught the front of his T-shirt.

"He start­ed to run but we could not hold him. He then ran in­to a neigh­bour's show­er but when he turned on the tap, there was no wa­ter..." Ra­manan said the Emer­gency Health Ser­vice was slow to re­spond. He urged young peo­ple to ex­er­cise cau­tion when play­ing with fire­works, burst­ing bam­boo and in­dulging in all oth­er sim­i­lar ac­tiv­i­ties.