A Williamsville man died this week when he was crushed to death by a falling gate.

Rel­a­tives of 64-year-old Prakash “Har­ry” Roop­nar­ine said they are stunned by the trag­ic in­ci­dent since the gate showed no signs of be­ing a dan­ger to any­one.

Roop­nar­ine’s rel­a­tives said the in­ci­dent oc­curred on Wednes­day as he was leav­ing his niece’s Hard­bar­gain, Williamsville home.

Roop­nar­ine’s younger sis­ter Vidya Sam told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, that he re­turned to his Riverdale Road, Williamsville home fol­low­ing heavy rains and walked about 100 feet to his niece’s house to stay for a while.

Sam said, “He was a labour­er in the vil­lage. He went to work but be­cause of the weath­er he came back home and went to vis­it his niece. He would vis­it her two or three times for the day.” He told her he was leav­ing to go and check on some­body who owed him some mon­ey, and when he was leav­ing they said the gate fell on him. “Ap­par­ent­ly, the gate came off the tracks and fell on him.”

Roop­nar­ine’s sis­ter said there was no in­di­ca­tion that the gate was un­sta­ble.

She said it took the am­bu­lance 15 min­utes be­fore they re­spond­ed but her broth­er was un­re­spon­sive by the time he was tak­en to the near­est hos­pi­tal. 

Sam de­scribed Roop­nar­ine as a help­ful, fun-lov­ing per­son who was the life of the par­ty and liked to dance. 

She said her broth­er loved mu­sic and was look­ing for­ward to turn­ing 65 to col­lect his old aged-pen­sion and to start plant­i­ng his gar­den.