An 89-year-old man who suffered from Alzheimer's disease and arthritis was burnt beyond recognition on Thursday night when his San Juan home caught afire.
According to police reports, Neville Clarke and his wife Yolande, 76, were at their Vita Street, Sunshine Avenue, San Juan, home, around 11.30 pm, when their house caught afire. Police said Yolande smelt smoke and tried unsuccessfully to get her husband to safety. The two-storey house, which police said was valued at $700,000, was completely gutted.
Speaking with reporters at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, the grieving woman said she tried to alert her husband but he did not respond to her calls. She said neighbours pulled her through a window but the blaze prevented them from reaching her husband.
"I smell smoke and when I got up I went to call him because we slept in different rooms. But I was calling him and he didn't answer; I don't know if he got unconscious. The flooring is pitch pine so the flooring caught afire already. So maybe he was unconscious. Everything burn up. All I was trying to do was to get out the house. The neighbours tried to get him out as well but they couldn't and I get cut from the glass when they pulled me through the window," the woman said.
She said her husband, a father of one, had retired from the Port of Port-of-Spain more than 20 years ago and he was a decent man. She said they had no children together and she would now be living at the home of her niece-in-law.