Inews, this morning, reported that 2 reportedly perish in Diamond Housing Scheme fire, however, new information indicates that just one person died.
The dead person has been identified as 90-year-old Rupert Mc Lean Williams.
Reports are that the fire started just about 8:30h in the back room of the house.
Relatives suspect that the man, an amputee, may have started the fire while attempting to light a cigarette.
Williams’ daughter in law, Dorsett McLeod-Solomon told Inews that her daughter was at home with her father-in-law but had just left to go to a nearby shop. However, when she returned, she saw the entire building engulfed in flames and subsequently summoned the Guyana Fire Service.
McLeod-Solomon recounted that last night, William was restless over his pension book because they were having some issues transferring it from Fort Wellington to Diamond. Her husband would have attempted to do that in December 2020 but was unsuccessful.
The woman, who lives overseas with her family, said that she stayed behind to ensure that her father-in-law could have someone to take care of him and was in the process of screening a caretaker for him.
“We got someone that came like three days ago and we started to screen the person because we can’t just hand him over to somebody just like that…he was sleeping on a bed flat on the floor because he rolled down two times from the bed and I told him ‘Dad I can’t afford to lose you’ so I put him flat and tell him that anytime you fall you gonna fall on the ground and we can work with that,” she related.
The woman added that she was at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, this morning, attempting to get his pension book sorted out when she received the dreadful news.
“He had asked my daughter to go buy a pack of cigarette for him and I told him he should not be smoking and I even called the neighbours and said that me and dad get into a problem because I tell he not to smoke. The last thing he told me was ‘me is not a lil boy don’t talk to me how you want, you think you is me mother’. I told him that I can’t take the smell of the smoke,” she recounted.
The investigations are ongoing.
