Oil-rig
blast victim dies
By Richard Charan
Trinidad Express
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 25 07
Brave
to the end: Dave Namdeo
Dave
Namdeo ran into a wall of fire to help four co-workers
and yesterday, that heroism cost him his life.
The
men he helped save will live, doctors say.
His
father, David Namdeo, is proud.
"It
is one of the things I taught him. He was the supervisor,
the senior man in charge. He could have left the
other guys. He didn't.
"He
endangered himself."
Namdeo,
26, died yesterday at the Intensive Care Unit of
the San Fernando General Hospital.
He
lived for seven days.
He
is the third contract worker to have died on the
job in the past two weeks.
Randy
Seecharan, 16, was electrocuted while working on
equipment at the Usine/Ste Madeleine sugar factory
two Saturdays ago, and cable company linesman Premchan
Ramdath, 35, was electrocuted at Diego Martin last
Wednesday.
Namdeo,
of Gowers Well Road, Fyzabad, left behind his three-month-old
girl, and the woman he planned to marry after building
a home.
On
the night of March 11, Namdeo and his crew, Vivian
Meade, 24, Ronald Seepersad, 42, Colin Mohammed,
20, and Naresh Bridgelal, 41, were working on an
oil rig in Palo Seco when there was a natural gas
explosion.
The
men ran a mile, helping one another rip off burning
boots and clothing.
It
took them almost two hours before workers at another
oil installation carried them to hospital.
The
explosion site burned for hours, destroying equipment
and an area 300 feet wide.
David
Namdeo said his son spoke to him briefly at the
Point Fortin District Hospital.
"He
told me 'Dad, I don't think I going to make it'.
I saw the severity of the burns. But I tried to
give him the assurance that things would work out."
Namdeo
fell unconscious and never spoke again.
His
father, also an oil worker, said: "My son loved
his job. He was very professional about it. Even
from a small boy playing in the oil fields with
his brother, they said that they wanted to work
in this business.
"We
intend to keep his girlfriend and his baby close
and care for them."
Bridgelal,
of Grants Road, Rousillac, is being treated at the
Burns Unit of the San Fernando Hospital.
The
other men were transferred to Petrotrin's Augustus
Long Hospital in Point a Pierre, on Saturday.
The
cause of the explosion is still not publicly known.
Trinidad
Express
Monday, March 19th 2007
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©2007 Trinidad Express. All Rights Reserved.
