A Corentyne labourer is now dead after receiving third-degree burns. He was seen by his wife in a ball of fire after she heard him screaming. He died a few hours after.
Dead: Naresh Rampersaud
Dead is 34-year-old Naresh Rampersaud of Lot 81 Third Street Miss Phobie, Port Mourant, who worked as a labourer at Nand Persaud Rice Mills.
According to his wife Roopadia Durdial, the incident took place on Thursday morning. She said they went to bed and she woke up to sounds of him screaming.
“3 o’clock morning time I hear a holler and my eyes open…he is not with me on the bed and when I look on the louvres I see the fire reflection and I push the door because the door left open and I run outside. I didn’t even see him on the ground because I looking at the house thinking that the house burning and then when I look on the ground I see him and I start to scream and call for my next-door neighbour. My neighbour tell me to take clothes or something and beat the fire with it and I start to pull the clothes off the line and then my father and brothers and neighbours run over and out the fire.”
The police were called and took the injured man for medial attention but he succumbed hours later.
This newspaper was told that last November, Rampersaud became ill and began skipping workdays. In fact, over the past three weeks, he only worked seven days.
Durdial explained that her father-in-law has displayed signs of mental illness and some of those same actions she had begun to notice in Rampersaud.
“In December month he tell me that his nerves affecting him and I carried him to the doctor and I get treatment for two weeks,” the woman told this publication. She said that he was subsequently admitted to the Port Mourant Hospital.
She added that in January, he was caught with a bottle of poison in his hand. According to Durdial, she once again took Rampersaud to the psychiatric hospital and he was admitted as a patient at the National Psychiatric Hospital, where he spent two weeks.
“Then in February, he take in with this mental thing again.” Over the past week, Rampersaud had reportedly begun having difficulty sleeping and had also started burning himself with lighted cigarettes. A post-mortem is expected shortly. Police have since launched an investigation.
