Ridge Pen residents claim leaking pipes ignored until fatal St Bess accident
Published:Monday | October 14, 2024 | 12:07 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
The long-standing issue of a leaking pipe would not have been dealt with, according to residents of Ridge Pen, St Elizabeth, if it weren’t for the death of a man who is thought to have drowned in a pothole filled with water.
Venroy ‘Bigga’ Blackwood was riding his bicycle on October 4, around 10 p.m., when he fell into a large pothole that was full of water.
His body was found face down. A photograph that has been circulating on social media shows the 58-year-old cement block maker, who works in Parottee, with a bag on his back and his bicycle close to his body.
According to residents, Blackwood was inebriated. It is further believed that he drowned in the water-filled pothole.
In an interview with The Gleaner last Thursday, a family member of Blackwood, who asked not to be named, said there are roughly three large potholes along the roadway, two of which were worsened and filled with water because of a National Water Commission (NWC) pipe leak.
The residents informed The Gleaner that the NWC came to fix the leaking pipes last Monday.
“If him never dead yasso, them wouldn’t fix it,” the family member said, further adding that “if him face never dung inna the water, maybe he would have been alive today”.
Other residents have also voiced similar sentiments.
The family member stated that the pipe had been leaking for approximately a year.
“National Water (Commission) pass ya three, four time every day and them nuh fix it,” she continued, noting that they had various opportunities to fix the pipes over the past months, prior to the incident.
Residents recalled a separate incident that happened about two years prior, involving a man who was allegedly not familiar with the roadway. While driving a motorcycle, the locals said, he rode into the pothole, lost control of his motorbike and was thrown into a ditch, breaking his neck. Nothing came of the incident, they claimed, because it was not covered by the media.
“The whole a the road tan bad,” one resident cried.
When contacted for comment, Delano Williams, acting corporate public relations manager at the NWC, told The Gleaner that the utility company was saddened to have learnt of the incident involving Blackwood and offered its condolences to his family and friends.
“While we await any official investigations being undertaken, the NWC will also seek to conduct its own checks,” Williams said. “Given that these investigations are now ongoing, we are unable to make any further comment on this matter at this time.”
Meanwhile, contrary to police reports, Derrick Sangster, Jamaica Labour Party councillor for the Mountainside division, who spoke with The Gleaner following the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation (StEMC) monthly meeting last Thursday, claimed that the Blackwood incident actually happened in Ewers Lane, Williamsfield, and not Ridge Pen.
He said the road, which is under the management of the municipal corporation, has not yet been fixed, but will be “addressed in due course”.
He continued that the last he heard about the matter was that the police were awaiting a post-mortem to determine the cause of Blackwood’s death.
“Further than that, I really don’t know anything,” Sangster said, adding that he had been in touch with the family.
However, the family member who spoke with The Gleaner denied this and claimed that neither Floyd Green, member of parliament for South West St Elizabeth, nor Sangster had visited the area or contacted them.
“It’s unfortunate that it happened, and we are upset that he died under the circumstances,” Sangster said, stating that he believed that residents have “calmed down”.