Birthday plans turn to grief

…as wheelchair-bound mother dies in blaze

(Kaieteur News) – Plans for a birthday celebration in honour of their mother were dramatically changed to funeral preparations for the children of 62-year-old Bibi Ramprashad, who lost her life in an early morning fire on Tuesday at her home.

The fire, of unknown origin, destroyed a two-storey concrete structure, and killed Ramprashad, who was confined to a wheelchair due to an illness. She was alone at the time of the fire, which started at around 04:45hrs according to neighbours. Her husband was occupied in the backdam at Blairmont.

Dead: 62-year-old Bibi Ramprashad.

Speaking to Kaieteur News on Tuesday, her son, Kevin Ramprashad expressed agony over his inability to rescue his mother.

“I got a call that there was a fire home there, and when I came, the house was already on fire. We couldn’t enter the house or anything. All we could do was wait till the fire truck finish, but my mother was inside the house at the time.”

The two-storey concrete house that was destroyed by fire.

He explained that his mother was a diabetic, having been diagnosed over ten years. As such, she moved about the home via a wheelchair. The blaze gutted the estimated $30 million property and caused the roof to collapse on the already trapped woman, who in addition to being badly burnt, was crushed.

“She tried to move with her wheelchair to reach the side door, and she couldn’t make it. The smoke stifled her and she was unconscious.”

Due to the intensity of the blaze, relatives and neighbours were helpless in rescuing the woman, whose burnt body was nearly unrecognizable in the aftermath.

She was removed from the rubble and taken to the Bailey’s Funeral Home.

Looknauth Ramprashad and his children at the scene of the fire which killed his wife and their mother.

Her husband of 40+ years, Looknauth Ramprashad, called Prem, recounted the horrific news that were delivered to him while he was away.

“About 5 O’Clock this morning, I get a call saying let me don’t leave the backdam, they gon’ come for me. I said ‘come for me for what? Meh gon’ ride out’. They said ‘no, don’t come out, we gon’ come for you with car’. So when them tell me that, I said (to himself) like my wife tek’ in and that they gone with her hospital.”

He reasoned to himself that she must have passed away for them to opt to come for him. Halfway on the journey back home, he demanded they offer him some details.

“I said y’all talk to me. What happened? Well my grandson can’t bear it no more. He said ‘grandfather, yuh house bun’ down, and we can’t find granny. Granny bun’ in the house’,” the grieving husband related.

Another son, Devon Ramprashad said he and other siblings were in the process of putting together plans for her 63rd birthday, which would have been on Thursday.

“We was planning on doing a surprise for her, but this is the surprise we got,”

Rebecca Persaud, a neighbour of the now dead woman, told this publication that she heard frantic sounds, and initially believed same to be dogs caterwauling.

“By the time I get up, I heard the voice, (saying) ow God! Ow God! When I come out, I hear a boom, and I thought was somebody robbing somebody and she’s yelling out. Then I saw the big fire. I ran to get my mom and dad, then call the fire department. By time I run out to see if I can do anything, the whole place was on fire,” Persaud shared.