Shas­tri Boodan

One per­son was elec­tro­cut­ed and three hos­pi­talised af­ter an ac­ci­dent at Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day.

The de­ceased has been iden­ti­fied as Stu­art Charles, Cen­tral Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor of the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC). The three in­jured men are Lo­gis­tic Of­fi­cer Fred­er­ick Den­nie, Team Com­man­der Bevon Her­cules and As­sis­tant Team Com­man­der Shane Son­ny­lal.

The four were at­tempt­ing to hoist a flag pole on the CCC com­pound when the pole leaned in a norther­ly di­rec­tion and came in con­tact with a 12,000-volt over­head line around 12.40 pm.

The in­jured men were tak­en by am­bu­lance to the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion’s (T&TEC’s) Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook vis­it­ed the scene and said that be­fore pow­er can be re­stored to the CCC, an­oth­er pole near the pow­er lines would have to be tak­en down.

“We are ex­am­in­ing the line to see if it was dam­aged in the process of this ac­tiv­i­ty and if that is the case we will do what­ev­er re­pairs and make sure every­thing is safe,” he added.

The fallen flag pole that led to the electrocution of three people at the CCC compound on Friday at Woodford Lodge, Chaguanas.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Ram­sook said the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health agency was al­so con­tact­ed.

He said around 100 do­mes­tic and a hand­ful of com­mer­cial cus­tomers were al­so af­fect­ed.

Ram­sook plead­ed with the pub­lic to call TTEC if they have to do any­thing near pow­er lines.

“We will re­spond and we will re­spond quick­ly and give you what­ev­er sup­port.”

The CCC has in­di­cat­ed that they would send a re­lease with the names of the de­ceased per­son and those who were elec­tro­cut­ed and any oth­er de­tails sur­round­ing this trag­ic ac­ci­dent as soon as all the de­tails be­come avail­able.

T&TEC lat­er is­sued a state­ment say­ing it had launched a probe in­to the cir­cum­stances.

“T&TEC is con­duct­ing en­quiries in­to an in­ci­dent in Ch­agua­nas where three per­sons were ap­par­ent­ly in­jured and one elec­tro­cut­ed af­ter a flag­pole they were mov­ing ap­peared to have come in­to con­tact with an elec­tric­i­ty line.”

Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fos­ter Cum­mings, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Charles.

Charles, who re­tired from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force in 2014 as a War­rant Of­fi­cer - Clerk I, sub­se­quent­ly joined the CCC in the po­si­tion of Team Com­man­der.

Suc­ces­sive­ly, he was pro­mot­ed to De­tach­ment Com­man­der and in 2021, pro­mot­ed to the po­si­tion of Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor for the Cen­tral Re­gion.

A T&TEC crew disconnects the supply to the Woodford Lodge area in Chaguanas. To the right of the photo is the fallen flagpole that caused three people to be electrocuted, on Friday.

SHASTRI BOODAN