Boy, 9, hangs himself

TWO young children, aged three and six years respectively, witnessed the horrific accidental death of their nine-year-old cousin Dillon Ramlal, who hanged himself with the strap of a schoolbag while playing at his Penal home on Monday afternoon. Ramlal earlier told his parents he wanted to see his hero, West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara, in the flesh, while he (Lara) toured San Fernando yesterday. “My boy was a good son who had good dreams and aspirations. He was a good boy and now he’s gone to a place somewhere in the heavens,” a tearful Sherina Ramlal told Newsday yesterday, as she recalled her last moments with her son. The hanging was deemed by police a freak accident and it has sent dozens of his neighbours, friends and relatives into mourning.

Ramlal lived with his parents at Rochard Road, Clarke Road in Penal and was reportedly left at home to play with his younger cousins Randy Seelal, six, and Ria Rampersad, three, in a bedroom, while Dillon’s mother Sherina, 29, left to go to a nearby grocery. Older brother Brandon,11, was sitting in the living-room watching the live telecast of Lara being feted along the Brian Lara Promenade. According to police reports, Dillon was playing on the bed with his younger cousins Randy and Ria at around 4.30 pm, when he took a strap from the schoolbag belonging to Brandon and climbed onto the bed-head which enabled him to reach a nail in the rafter, on which he secured one end of the strap.

He playfully wrapped the strap around his neck while his younger cousins, unaware of the danger, looked on in glee. Dillon then jumped onto the mattress with the strap secured around his neck. But when he landed on the mattress, it sank under his weight, and he suffocated.
While Dillon’s life was slowly ebbing away as he suffocated and twitched uncontrollably, his cousins, too young to comprehend what was going on, laughed and continued playing, police said. When Dillon grew still, his younger cousins sensed something was wrong and ran to the living-room and alerted Brandon, who brushed them off, thinking they (the cousins) were playing a prank. After the cousins continued pressing Brandon to go to the bedroom, he (Brandon) did so and, on seeing his brother hanging, he ran to the nearby home of his aunt, Sintra.

At the same time Brandon was out alerting his aunt, his mother returned home from the grocery and almost collapsed when she saw the body of her youngest son, which was clad in his favourite black shorts and black netted vest, hanging from the rafter of the bedroom. An EHS ambulance was called in and the unconscious boy rushed to San Fernando General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. A team of Penal officers, including Cpl Flanders, PC Douglas, WPC Myers and WPC Lopez, visited the scene. Speaking to Newsday, a sombre Brandon said at the time when his cousins entered the living room to alert him, he did not take them on since he (Brandon) was accustomed to his younger brother and cousins playing pranks on him. “It was only when my cousin Randy said Dillon was not moving and he was playing dead, that I decided to go and check on him. I became frightened when I saw him hanging, so I then called my aunt Sintra, who was at the house next door,” Brandon said.

Ramlal, a Standard Three student of Clarke Rochard Government School, waited anxiously for the reopening of the new  term, so he could return to school and meet his classmates and teachers, whom he had not seen over the Easter vacation. Grieving relatives told Newsday that Dillon spent the first day of school playing with friends and bragging to his teachers and schoolmates about all the exciting things he had done over the Easter holiday, including picking melons, catching fish and even learning to ride a bicycle. Ramlal’s mother tearfully said her son’s birthday was coming up on April 29 and that he asked her to  prepare dhal, rice and smoke herring for him, so he could “eat his belly full.” He also told her not to worry about gifts.

The distraught mother said that her son was one who would make everyone laugh and forget all their worries; instead of confiding in her, he confided in his uncle David Sirju, who also considered Ramlal as his own son since he himself did not have any children. Dillon looked up to Brian Lara as his hero and was looking forward to seeing the batting star in the flesh. “My son, being a cricket fan and a fan of Lara, was anxiously awaiting the day to come when he would stand along the road along with his schoolmates to see Lara pass in the motorcade,” Sherina said. “He also prayed and hoped that he would have gotten to touch Lara and receive a signed autograph, but unfortunately that day, which was so near, was still too far,” she cried. She noted also that Ramlal, ever since he was a child growing up, was fascinated with the army and often told them that he would become a soldier. “Good dreams, good aspirations, good boy — now he’s gone to a good place somewhere in the heavens,” she lamented.