Newsgathering Editor
ryan.bachoo@cnc3.co.tt
A Massy Energy Engineered Solutions Ltd (MEES) worker, assigned to NiQuan Energy Trinidad’s Pointe-a-Pierre plant, who was injured in an incident at the facility on Thursday, has died. He died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Miami.
MEES confirmed the death in a media release stating, “Massy Energy Engineered Solutions Ltd is deeply saddened by the passing of our employee Allanlane Ramkissoon who was involved in an incident at NiQuan Energy Trinidad Ltd on Thursday 15th June 2023.”
The statement vaguely said he “was being treated at a specialist facility, but unfortunately succumbed to his injuries and passed away on Sunday 18th June 2023.”
Speaking at Labour Day celebrations in Fyzabad yesterday, Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Pointe-A-Pierre branch president, Christopher Jackman, revealed the series of events that led to Ramkissoon’s injury.
He said while the company is not unionised, workers speak with him regularly out of concern. Jackman told the media, “He was working at the facility and encountered a process leak where naphtha would have sprayed onto the worker and he would have lit afire. What would have caused the ignition, I’m not sure. After he would have been ablaze, he was advised by persons on site to jump and they will catch him. After he proceeded to jump, they failed to catch him or failed to catch him properly and, as a result of that, he sustained further injuries by falling onto the floor.” Jackman said he was told the jump was from roughly ten feet high.
In a media release on Saturday afternoon, NiQuan said the individual was in stable condition and receiving medical attention. It did not give details of the extent of the injury or what led to the worker suffering the injury.
However, Jackman said, “It’s important to also highlight that while all of this happened, there was no fire alarm heard at the facility and it took hours for an ambulance to arrive on site to usher the worker to hospital.” At West Shore, where he was taken, he underwent surgery to stabilise and they then forwarded him via aircraft to a burn facility in Miami where he succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.
Jackman said he understands the plant was still operational.
“At one point, the workers were concerned about the incident and the fact that their co-worker would have been injured, so yes there was a short ‘down tool’, but right now the workers are back to work,” he told the media.
The president of the OWTU Pointe-a-Pierre branch said, “Work like this an ambulance should have been on standby for rapid response.”
Efforts to reach NiQuan Energy Ltd CEO, Ainsley Gill, for comment on the incident proved futile.