Party-goer dies at Soaka Till Sunrise in Chaguaramas

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Par­ty-go­ers at­tend­ing yes­ter­day’s Soa­ka Till Sun­rise at O2 Park in Ch­aguara­mas were left shocked—not by the event it­self, but by the sud­den death of one pa­tron.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 7.45 am when Vishal Sookoo, 37, of Red Hill, Arou­ca, suf­fered a seizure dur­ing one of the per­for­mances. Friends at the event said he had been en­joy­ing him­self when he sud­den­ly col­lapsed.

As those near­by rushed to as­sist, oth­ers watched in hor­ror as at­tempts to re­vive him proved un­suc­cess­ful. Emer­gency Health Ser­vices (EHS) per­son­nel at the venue trans­port­ed Sookoo to the St James In­fir­mary, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at 8.45 am.

Po­lice re­ports in­di­cate that a pack­et of non-pre­scrip­tion pills was found on Sookoo’s per­son, though au­thor­i­ties could not con­firm the type of pills or whether he had con­sumed any. Of­fi­cials have urged the pub­lic not to spec­u­late on the cause of death, not­ing that au­top­sy re­sults are pend­ing.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial con­firmed that “there was no foul play in­volved” and sug­gest­ed that Sookoo may have suf­fered the ef­fects of mix­ing pills with al­co­hol. The of­fi­cial cau­tioned: “Drugs and al­co­hol do not mix. It does not mat­ter even if it is pre­scribed med­ica­tion—it can pose a se­ri­ous dan­ger to your life. One should al­ways ex­er­cise per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly when par­ty­ing. Please stay away from drugs.”

Soa­ka Till Sun­rise, or­gan­ised by W.O.W. Events, is a pop­u­lar jou­vert-style event on the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, friends, fam­i­ly, and mem­bers of the pub­lic took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press con­do­lences. A friend who at­tend­ed the par­ty with Sookoo post­ed, “Every­body have their own race to run yes—Vishal Sookoo.” San­dra Loorkoor wrote, “He died do­ing one of his favourite things.” Sasha Sah Latch­man added, “This young man was en­joy­ing him­self—that’s most im­por­tant. Death comes at any­one any­time. So peo­ple need to en­joy life; you nev­er know when your name will be called to go home.”

Oth­ers shared cau­tions for par­ty-go­ers. Mi­ran­da Simp­son warned, “Red Bull and Mon­ster with al­co­hol is ask­ing for trou­ble. Pun­cheon and cask wine—same thing.” Davi­ca Sook­lal wrote, “It’s on­ly so much your heart can han­dle—drink­ing and danc­ing with en­er­gy drinks all night. Many young peo­ple are get­ting heart at­tacks, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter COVID. Please take care of your body.”