– residents urge authorities to urgently fix roadway
A nine-year-old boy became the third victim to suffer injuries as a result of a 15ft fall down a gorge that had evolved as a result of excavation of a bridge that once connect the railway embankment environs of Paradise and Enmore on the East Coast of Demerara. The man-made gorge came into existence after the authorities were forced to remove the infrastructure of a bridge that had given into apparent soil erosion and become impassable a few weeks ago.
The old structure was removed in preparation for reconstruction of a new and erosion-adapted bridge.
However, hampered by inclement weather, construction of the new bridge had not commence as per schedule, and there was no word as to exactly what other options the authorities would employ in the interim.
This delay however, has created a dangerous situation for children who usually use the embankment road to walk to and from school at Enmore and Paradise daily, in addition to GuySuCo workers.
A makeshift structure with two round poles and a flat surface measuring no more than 10 inches is one of two dangerous means that children and adults now use to cross the forty feet wide gorge.
However, most children try to maneuver via a six-inch strip alongside the concrete rail of the old bridge in order to get to the other side.
This, according to residents, is usually a recipe for accidents and injuries since either of the cross-over options are not safe.
That being the case, it was via the concrete rail method that a second child fell victim to the deep gouge, and sustained serious injuries in the process.
According to eye witnesses, after the school boy fell into the gorge yesterday morning, persons on hand had to dangerously slide down its rugged slopes to rescue the child and then rush him to hospital for medical attention.
They added that last Wednesday, another child had fallen into the gorge under similar circumstances, and had to be rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Two weeks earlier a taxi driver, who was apparently unfamiliar with the area, inadvertently plunged his car into the gorge, and had to hire heavy machinery to recover the damaged car the next day.
Residents claimed that there are many other cases which were never reported, but had always occurred under the same circumstances.