Dad dies in daughter’s lap

BEREAVED relatives of La Romaine Pastor Rawlins Sookraj, who suffered a massive heart attack while bathing at a Cedros beach on Carnival Tuesday, yesterday slammed the Government for a lack of proper health facilities in the rural village, which they said may have hastened their deceased relative’s demise. “My father might have been alive today if there was a doctor or medical facility nearby. At least he would have had a chance to fight for life,” Mellicient Teeluck cried, as she spoke to Newsday about her dead father. Teeluck also criticised the media (not Newsday) for falsely reporting her father, fondly known as “Thank You,” as having drowned. Recalling the ordeal, Teeluck said her 70-year-old father was bathing in knee-high water at Columbus Bay and was excited and clapping because his granddaughter had caught a fish.

“I turn to brakes from a wave and I watch for daddy and I see him face down in the water,” a tearful Teeluck recounted. She said when her daughter Malini ran to her grandfather and held up his head, there was froth in his mouth and nose and he was gasping for breath. Teeluck said when they called the Emergency Health Service they were told the ambulance would be there in 45 minutes. Fearing that her father would die before the ambulance arrived, they placed Sookraj in her husband’s car and went in search of help. “Imagine my father’s head on my lap from Cedros to Point Fortin and knowing that he going to die because I cannot help him,” Teeluck sobbed.

Sookraj was pronounced dead when they arrived at Point Fortin Hospital. Calling on the relevant authorities to put proper health facilities in the country, especially rural areas, Teeluck charged: “Imagine on a holiday where it is expected that people would be going to the beach it have no place where people could go for medical help if they have a problem. There should have been a mobile health unit in the area. Even the Cedros Health Centre was closed.” Teeluck said her father had been a pastor for over 30 years and had eight children, 22 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The funeral service is tentatively planned for Friday. In an unrelated incident on Monday, the mother of policeman Sgt Krishna Adhar was found floating in shallow waters at Los Iros beach. It is believed 68-year-old Parbatie Adhar suffered an epileptic seizure and subsequently died.