A Parika labourer is now battling for his life at the West Demerara Regional Hospital after he ingested poison following a fire, which completely gutted his home in the wee hours of Monday.
The hospitalised man has been identified as 49-year-old Mohan Persaud of Parika Backdam, East Bank Essequibo (EBE).
According to information reaching Guyana Times, the two-storey wooden building went up in flames sometime after midnight at the hands of Persaud, who is allegedly a known drunkard.
Reports are Persaud returned home from work on Sunday in an intoxicated state, which resulted in a confrontation between him and his wife. The dispute ended with the labourer threatening his wife, saying, “‘I will teach you a lesson’,” relatives reported.
Later that evening, the woman was awakened by the scent of smoke and subsequently discovered that the house was on fire. The family managed to escape the inferno before their house was burnt to the ground. It was then that the labourer indicated that he had consumed the poison.
However, while speaking to this publication at the hospital, the eldest daughter of the family, Shivanie Persaud, relayed that it was all an accident and as such, the destruction was not intentional.
“Me father been lie down on de bed a sleep and de lamp went next to he foot and he been drunk and he mussy get up fuh go outside or something and kick the lamp and the lamp fall down and blaze up with the fire,” the daughter related.
Moreover, the young woman went on to say, “By the time he coulda guh fuh do anything, he get confused and he drink de poison. He drink Gramoxone.”
