A construction foreman was on Tuesday electrocuted while working at a site at C Field Sophia, Georgetown.
Dead: Elroy Haynes also called ‘Biggist’
Reports are that the foreman was killed after a dragline came into contact with a high-powered wire.
Dead is 59-year-old Elroy Haynes also called “Biggist” of Kiltairn Village, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne). At the time of the incident, he was employed with Annirude Ramcharitar Construction Company of Friendship Village, also on the Corentyne.
They were constructing a bridge for the Central Housing and Planning Authority under the International Development Bank, Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme.
Speaking with Guyana Times, Annirude Ramcharitar said he received a telephone call at about 13:00h on Tuesday informing him of the incident.
He said Haynes had been a very careful foreman and had supervised four other bridges in the same area which were constructed under the high-powered lines which belong to the Guyana Power and Light.
According to Ramcharitar, if the dragline had come into contact with the line then the operator would have been “roasted”.
The dead man’s sister, Michelle, said she spoke with one of the workers, who was on site and he gave a different version of what happened.
“The person who had the phone said he was one of the workers on the worksite and one of them who took him to the hospital. He said to me that they were doing work in C Field and they had a crane moving piles from one place and placing them at another area and the boom of the crane came into contact with a live wire. My brother was below the machine, not inside holding a wire, and he fell and the guy that was next to him was pitched away.”
Haynes was picked up and taken to the Georgetown Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The other worker was treated and sent away.
A post-mortem performed on the body by Government Pathologist Dr Nehal Singh gave the cause of death as electrocution.
Meanwhile, in a statement, the Central Housing and Planning Authority said the agency will be launching an internal investigation to see whether any safety standards were breached. The incident, the statement said, will be reported to the Labour Department of the Social Protection Ministry.
At the time of the incident, Hayes along with other workers were moving construction piles from one location to another when a part of the crane which was being used to move the piles came into contact with a high voltage electric line resulting in the unfortunate incident, the Central Housing and Planning Authority said.
Haynes was the third of eight siblings and the first to have passed away. He leaves to mourn a wife, four children and six siblings.
