Elderly siblings perish in Bon Aventure fire

News

Stroke patient Ramnath Bheem, 64, his wheelchair-bound sister Sookeah Bheem, 79, and their dog died when a fire gutted their Cotton Hill Junction, Bon Aventure, Gasparillo, home in the early morning of April 10. The fire broke out around 4 am, neighbours said.

Living across the road, Gayle Pope said she heard glass breaking and even a car slamming on its breaks from her bedroom but assumed it was a fight happening along the roadway.

"When I come outside now and I watch I seeing fire coming from the back. Like it had a backroom in the back of that house. Fire just pelting coming through from the back of the house and I run outside with my vest and my panty and I start to bawl. I alert the neighbours well something happening."

She said the family dog, which was tied downstairs, was heard screaming through the blaze.

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Martha Yeewah, 57, is a live-in caretaker for the disabled siblings, but said she was not at home when the fire occurred.

"My grandson called me and tell me his friend call him and tell him I die in the house here too. That the house was on fire. So when he called me and said: 'The house on fire, where you?' I said: 'What?' I just drop everything I was doing and I reach up the road."

She said she arrived around 5.15 am and met the fire appliances on the scene.

Even hours after the fire service had doused the fires and the Bheems' bodies were whisked away to the funeral home, Yeewah said she felt sick thinking about the fate that befell her charges and what could have happened to her.

"They are two very nice people. Very, very nice people. Anything them ask me to do I would do, and anywhere they want to go I carry them.

"Right now it's not a nice feeling."

Yeewah said she was supposed to pick up Sookeah that morning to go purchase a new wheelchair.

She said the Bheems' loss was a heavy one to bear after she lost her husband and son in a car accident in 2006 which also claimed two additional lives in the vehicle she was travelling in. She said she also lost her five-bedroom Chaguanas home over a decade ago to a fire.

Living in the area her entire life, Mavis Farrow, 54, said she would frequently visit and spend time with the Bheems, especially Sookeah.

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"The whole sad thing about it, even so the house burn, they inside the house, they didn't deserve that."

While not blaming the caretaker, Farrow believed the siblings' chances of survival would have been better had she been around at the time.

Yeewah later went into the house, escorted by a fire officer for safety, to recover what was left of her clothes and other personal items. She said she would live out of her car until she could figure out another living situation.

Fire prevention officers remained on the scene until mid-morning, attempting to determine the cause of the blaze.

When contacted, Assistant Chief Fire Officer Southern Division Mukharji Rampersad told Newsday the cause had not yet been determined as investigations were still under way.

Yeewah believes the fire may have started because of an electrical surge, as sparks were reportedly coming from the power line running to the house. However, Pope denies this, saying the fire was already underway when the power lines began to spark.

"The fire come from the back of the house. We only see electrical sparks when the front burn."