BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – RESIDENT Pathologist Dr. Adrian Nunez Quintana on Tuesday (Dec. 7) performed an autopsy on the body of Elrick ‘Talah’ Prentice and disclosed that the construction worker died as a result of severe head injury, following a fall from a building after suffering an electric shock.
The 55-year-old, who was an employee of Moorjani Construction Company, fell from a building under construction in Bird Rock on the morning of Friday, December 3 and died sometime after 4:00 p.m. on the same day while undergoing treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of the JNF Hospital.
On the day of the Sebastian Street, Newtown resident’s death, SKNVibes learned that he fell some 24 feet to the ground after the handle of the bull float he was using came into contact with a nearby high-tension power line.
A bull float is a concrete finishing tool that smoothes fresh concrete surfaces. It has a long handle attached to a flat wood, aluminum or magnesium piece called a float.
On arrival at the scene, one of the construction workers told this media house that Prentice was on the scaffold bull floating and “the handle touched a high-tension power line and he was shocked, which caused him to fall to the ground”.
The building from which he fell is owned by RAMs Trading Company, which SKNVibes learned will be used as a warehouse and will also comprise apartments.
Speaking with the wife of the deceased, Bodecier ‘Lulu’ Prentice, she told SKNVibes that she received a telephone call at her place of employ shortly after he fell and she was present at the hospital before the ambulance had arrived there.
“He was breathing but not conscious of what was going on. There was blood on his face, but I cannot say if it came from his mouth, nostrils or from a cut on his face. The doctor said there were no broken bones in his body and we would have to wait for the results of a post mortem to ascertain the cause of his death,” Bodecier said.
Bodecier told SKNVibes this morning (Dec. 13) that her husband would be buried at the Springfield Cemetery on Wednesday (Dec. 15). She noted that his body would be opened for viewing from 2:00 p.m. at the St. George’s Anglican Church on Cayon Street, Basseterre and would be followed by a Funeral Service at 3:00 p.m.
