A routine trip outside turned near tragic for 29-year-old Alicia Stowe yesterday, when the concrete slab covering the suck well outside her home gave way, and she plunged 25 feet.
Her common law husband, Corey Cadogan, told the DAILY NATION Stowe had just come from putting down their six-month-old son Kai when the incident occurred at their 2nd Avenue, Thomas Gap, President Kennedy Drive, St Michael home.
“I was washing this morning, and she was dealing with the li’l boy. She finish bathing him, put him down in the playpen and come back outside to give me a hand. She turn and come, and all I hear is ‘splosh’,” he said, choking back the tears.
Caodgan said when he looked around, he saw a gaping hole where the concrete cover used to be.
“She and the cover went straight down in the hole. I had to call my friends to help get her out.
“One of the guys went down in the hole and tied her hands, and together we lift her out. Her foot and hands scrape up,” he said yesterday morning. At the time, she was at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital seeking medical attention.
However, while Cadogan, who has lived on the property for over ten years, was grateful nothing more disastrous occurred, he was blaming the Urban Development Commission (UDC) for what he called shoddy work on the well.
“The cover was built over the well and it ain’t got nothing underneath to hold up the cover.
“It ain’t got no ledge or lip to hold up the cover; they just cast over the wooden frame,” he said, pointing to the rusted galvanised sheeting jutting out from the well.
“I just happy she ain’t had the baby in her hand. Only the Creator guide her down through that and to the bottom of that well.”
When she was on her way to the hospital, Stowe, who has lived there for six years, said she was okay.
“When I was down in the hole all I wanted to do was get out.
“I wasn’t frightened or anything . . . . I only got the scrapes on my legs and hands,” she said via telephone.
Later in the evening, Cadogan told the DAILY NATION a man from UDC had visited to survey the problem.
“[He] come and say somebody will come. A contractor came and left, and come back with [the UDC official].
“They say they will have to run the pipe into the well, and put a permanent cover over the hole. They coming back tomorrow [today],” he explained.
Repeated calls to the UDC both in the morning and evening for a response were unsuccessful. (RA)
