Horse rips off boy’s arm in Cunupia

Doctors at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex were yesterday unable to re-attach the left arm of a seven-year-old boy which was ripped off by a stallion at a horse farm in Cunupia. Specialists told relatives yesterday that they could not re-attach the child’s arm because it was severly damaged. David Sinanan, who opted to stay home yesterday instead of attending a Carnival jump-up at his school, went to the horse farm — High Clear Stud — a short distance away from his home, with his two elder brothers Chrishiva, 12 and Ronnie, 10 and a friend. The boys had gone to the farm to meet an employee at the farm who was fixing a bicycle for them.

Farm attendant, Deonarine Sankar, recalled that around 10.40 am he was standing at the stables when he saw Sinanan jump off his bicycle and walk up to the railing, where the stallion named “Java in Style,” was in the pasture. “Before I could say don’t play with the horse, the lil fella call the horse and touch the horse on its nose. The horse snatched him by his wrist and raised him. The small man try to hold the railing but the horse started shaking and spinning him. His hand by the shoulder just rip off and the boy fall on the ground. The hand was still in the horse mouth,” Sankar related. He added that the child started bawling and ran out of the pasture. Sankar said he ran and got the arm first and then lifted the child and put him in a shady area.

He said he bandaged the boy’s wound and placed the arm in a bag. “He was bawling and crying. I thought he would have died in my arms,” Sankar said. He said this was the first time he had ever experienced such an incident, adding that four days ago the same stallion bit him under his arm. Sankar, who has been working on the farm for the past two years, explained that it was mating season and the horses usually become very agressive during that time. He added that the horse did not know the child and considered him to be an “enemy.” He said the farm was owned by Maniram Gobin Boboy Maharaj and the contractor was Amar Maharaj, but both men had gone to the police station.

Sinanan’s parents, Rodney Khan and Dulmatee Sinanan, 26, were at the hospital with their son and were not around when Newsday visited their Ragoonanan Road home. However, his brother Chrishiva said that it was Sinanan’s second visit to the farm, and they only went to “check the man for the bike.” His grandfather, Sinanan Toolsie, said his grandson, a pupil of the Ragoonanan Government Primary School, was a left-hander and was a very quiet boy. He expressed outrage that the owners of the farm would allow children to enter the farm unsupervised.