Second worker dies after mishap at TCL | | -------------------------------------------------
Top of FormBottom of Form | Home | News | Business | Sports | Finance | | Editorial | Commentary | Opinion | | Features | Entertainment | Photo Gallery | | Sports Arena | Womanwise | Business Guardian | Guardian In Education | | Letters | Online Community | Death Notices | | Advertising | Classified Ads | Jobs in T&T | Contact Us | | Archives | Privacy Policy | | | | | | Veno Balgobin speaks at his Mc Bean Village, Couva, home about his brother Sunil, inset, an Insertec employee who succumbed yesterday to injuries sustained after a fall at a TCL plant on Monday.Sunil BalgobinPhoto: Adrian BoodanBY RADHICA SOOKRAJMore than a dozen TCL contract workers, who had gone to donate blood at the Augustus Long Hospital, broke down in tears yesterday on hearing that their co-worker, Sunil Balgobin, had died.Balgobin, 30, of Sonny Ladoo Road, Mc Bean Village, Couva, died at hospital around midday, following a mishap at his workplace. He suffered broken legs, spinal injuries, a broken collar bone, a broken hip and head injuries, when he fell down a flight of stairs at TCL’s Packing Plant 2 the day before.The incident occurred around 6 pm on Monday. Balgobin had worked as an electrician with Insertec (Caribbean) Ltd for more than a year. Insertec had been hired by TCL to do electrical work at the plant.During mid-morning yesterday, Balgobin remained hooked up to life support machines at the Augustus Long Hospital, Pointe-a-Pierre.Doctors were preparing to transfer him to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) when he took a turn for the worse around 11 am and died at 12.15 pm.Balgobin’s brother, Veno, said they had all been praying that he would survive.Veno said he had bitten off his tongue when he fell down the stairs, between two silos.He said that since Monday, a battery of doctors had been attending to Balgobin.“On Monday night, hours after he fell, a neurosurgeon examined my brother. He recommended that Sunil be kept in an intensive care unit,” Veno said.However, he said there was no space available at the San Fernando General Hospital, which has one intensive care unit that can accommodate three patients.Arrangements were later made for Balgobin to receive such care at the EWMSC in Mt Hope.However, because of Balgobin’s worsening condition, doctors were fearful of moving him until he became stabilised. He died before he could be transferred.The contract workers from Insertec cried when they heard Balgobin had died. They had responded to requests for blood donations after management told them Balgobin needed four pints.At the family’s Mc Bean home, several friends and neighbours gathered.Neighbour Premchand Ramdath said: “Sunil was a good man. He was the best neighbour we could have.”An autopsy will be done on Balgobin’s body today.Balgobin is the second TCL contract worker to have died within three days. On Saturday, 17-year-old Dinesh Rampersad died after being buried under tonnes of cement. His funeral took place yesterday.Latest death crawls a mother’s bloodBy Joanne BriggsSavitri Harrylal’s blood crawled upon hearing about the death of Sunil Balgobin, who succumbed to his injuries yesterday after he fell down a flight of stairs at Trinidad Cement Ltd’s Packing Plant 2.The news of his death was close to her as her son, 21-year-old Shivan, also died on the job.On February 22, an explosion at Industrial Gases Ltd (IGL) in Savonetta claimed Shivan’s life and two others were hospitalised after a powerful explosion ripped a gaping hole in the metal roof of the building.Since then, Harrylal carries the burning desire to have the Occupational Safety and Health Act implemented.“It should be done immediately. Our family wants to get this act passed,” she said in a telephone interview yesterday.“Something positive should come out of our child’s death. There have been so many deaths since he died. How many times must we go through this?“When he was alive, the values he stood for...he wanted to make a difference. Even in death, his name will live on. He wants this act to pass. He wants to see the safety of workers.”Harrylal did not know Balgobin died until she returned home from the Senate. She and her husband, Kenneth, were there yesterday to get an update on the investigation on the IGL explosion but were surprised to hear Minister of Labour Danny Montano read from the executive summary of the probe.She expressed dissatisfaction over what she heard.“It was straightforward but we still do have not any answers,” she said.“We will keep doing follow-ups on it. We are not letting it lie. We still did not get the answers we were looking for. Our concern is that somebody has to be responsible for it.”Responding to a tabled question by Independent Senator Basharat Ali about the explosion, Montano said the blast which claimed Shivan’s life was caused by the introduction of high pressure oxygen into a cylinder designed for low pressure gases.“The cylinder also contained acetylene (gas used for a blowtorch) prior to its filling,” said Montano.IGL, jointly owned by Neal and Massy (N&M) Holdings Ltd and Air Liquide International SA of Paris, France, manufactures oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, acetylene, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, compressed air and gas mixtures.Spokesman for N&M Holdings, Neal Parsanlal, yesterday said the company is aware of the report but deferred a response to another time.Montano said there were other contributing factors which included “a system of work for the identification of sorting and filling of cyclinders; the training and retraining of Shivan Harrylal with the respect to the performance of duties of a transferring operator; the level of supervision and the systems of reassigning duties of employees that were absent.”Montano faced more questions from Ali after he read the executive summary.“Who was responsible for the whole incident? How could a mistake be made?” asked Ali.The summary also made recommendations, including the development, implementation as well as monitoring review of systems that deal with reassigning employee responsibilities and assessment of workload, Montano said. | ©2004-2005 Trinidad Publishing Company LimitedDesigned by: Randall Rajkumar-Maharaj · Updated daily by:Sheahan Farrell | | |