OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A freak ac­ci­dent at Wood­ford Square in Port of Spain yes­ter­day left two Venezue­lan na­tion­als nurs­ing se­ri­ous in­juries.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the tree fell just af­ter 2 pm, close to the south en­trance of Wood­ford Square.

The two Venezue­lan na­tion­als, iden­ti­fied as Jairo Jose Fontt Acos­ta, 22, and Yul­la­nis Perez, 20, were sit­ting on a bench when the tree came crash­ing down on them.

Eye­wit­ness­es came to their res­cue and pulled the two from un­der the tree.

Their in­juries were not im­me­di­ate­ly clear but they were list­ed as se­ri­ous.

Fire and po­lice of­fi­cials re­spond­ed and rushed the two to the hos­pi­tal.

One eye­wit­ness, Car­ol Turn­er told Guardian Me­dia that they heard the noise and then heard peo­ple shout­ing that two per­sons were un­der the tree.

“That is when I ran un­der to help and re­move the women and her per­son­al be­long­ings. Her shoul­der was in a lot of pain and (she was) bleed­ing. The man was re­moved by oth­er per­sons,” she said.

Turn­er lament­ed, “I pass in the Wood­ford Square dai­ly and I al­ways watch this tree and I knew that it was rot­ting but I would have nev­er thought it would have fall­en on some­one, that is the first time I see some­thing like this.”

The area where the tree fell is now cor­doned off from the pub­lic.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.