Senior Reporter
derek.achong@gurdian.co.tt
A 55-year-old man from Biche was killed by a falling tree branch on Saturday night.
Samaroo Ragoonanan was with fellow residents in a forest camp off Lasalle Road in Biche when he left to look for branches to make fishing rods.
Ragoonanan did not return and his friends found his body almost 200 feet away from the camp when they went looking for him yesterday morning.
Police officers responded to the scene and assisted in removing Ragoonanan’s body. He was pronounced dead by a District Medical Officer (DMO).
An autopsy is expected to take place at the Forensic Science Centre in St James later this week.
Martin Boodhai said he was inspecting his catch of cascadoux that he caught earlier that night when he heard the branch break. He admitted that he was shocked to learn that it fell on Ragoonanan as falling branches are a regular occurrence in the rural community.
“I don’t know how the man unlucky so,” he said.
Asked whether he had any advice for fellow hunters and hikers to avoid a similar occurrence, he said it was a freak accident that could have happened to anyone.
“Not really. All kinds of things does happen in the forest,” he said, as he noted that his uncle went missing several years ago.
“We never find him up to now,” Boodhai said.
