Boy 5, falls on knife, dies

A BOXING Day celebration ended in tragedy for the Gomez family. One minute their son Romeo Gomez, 5, was running carefree along Ramdularie Trace in Cunupia, in front of his aunt’s home — a few hours later he lay dead at Mt Hope Children’s Hospital — the victim of a freak accident. According to reports, Romeo and his mother, Fallon Seepersad, were visiting her sister, whom Seepersad had not seen for some time, when disaster struck. Around 4.45 pm, Romeo’s eight-year-old cousin Stephen McDonald was fixing his bicycle, when Romeo grabbed a knife he was using as a tool and ran into the road.

Stephen ran after Romeo in an attempt to retrieve the knife, when the Santa Cruz Seventh Day Adventist Church Primary School student tripped and fell face down on the knife. When Stephen attempted to lift Romeo, there was blood gushing from the five-year-old’s neck. Family members, who were also visiting for the holiday, quickly wrapped the bleeding area with a piece of cloth, and took him inside to his mother. On seeing the injury, his mother quickly rushed him to the Chaguanas Health Facility from where he was transferred to the Mt Hope Paediatric Ward, where he succumbed to the injury around 7.50 pm. All the family’s plans for Boxing Day celebrations were immediately shelved. When Newsday visited the Ramdularie Trace house where the incident took place, no one was available and neighbours were not even aware of the incident.

However, when Newsday visited Romeo’s father and mother at their Petit Curacaye Road home in Lower Santa Cruz, Seepersad, holding back the tears, described her son as a playful, loving little person. “I cannot celebrate Christmas or New Year’s again,” she said. I had stopped celebrating these occasions when my mother died around the same time four years ago. “I began to celebrate it again because of Romeo. He loved the toys, gifts, food and everything that went with the season. “Now he has gone around the same time again, I will not celebrate it again,” she said. Romeo was her only son.

The traumatised Seepersad, supported by her shocked common-law husband Curtis Gomez, could shed no light on the incident. She could only say that she was inside when her son was brought to her, with a piece of cloth covered in blood tied around his neck. When she removed the cloth and saw the gaping wound to his throat, he was rushed to hospital. An autopsy will be performed today. Visiting the scene were acting Insp Philip, Sergeant Ramlahan, acting Sgt Ramlogan and PC Ragoo. PC Ragoo is investigating.