Tree falls on man in graveyard - Victim dies at hospital

July 13, 2020
Leroy Lewis died after a tree fell on him in a graveyard.
Leroy Lewis died after a tree fell on him in a graveyard.

Leroy 'Fire' Lewis, a 57-year-old farmer from Belmont district near Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew, died tragically after a tree fell on him in his community on Saturday afternoon. According to his family, Lewis, a father of one, was asked by a friend to cut an ackee tree.

After he was finished, the woman sent him into a graveyard to cut another tree. Only this time, the tree he had cut, fell on another tree, which collapsed on him, crushing the lower half of his body.

"He was just saying 'take di tree off a me foot.' Even at hospital, a lady, who was there assisting him, said all a him stomach go down crushed. The doctors also said his abdomen was damaged, his blood pressure was high and his brain was swelling. The police came here and I asked them how big the tree is ... They said the tree is a huge tree," Ivy Lewis, his younger sister told THE STAR.

"I don't know why she send him go cut that tree and that wasn't the plan! I keep asking her why she send him inna graveyard to cut another tree that she don't need. I keep asking her why and all she can say is that the tree was making the place too cool."

Ivy said the last time she saw her brother was on Saturday morning when he said he was leaving to 'cut a tree for a friend.'

"I asked him if him soon come back and him seh yes. I said 'yuh sure yuh soon come back?" she said, noting that he would always take a while to return home.

Approximately 2:30 p.m., she got a call from a lady, saying that a tree fell on her brother - the middle child. "She said 'Fire a cut a tree and the tree drop pon him and we a bring him go hospital.'

"I keep calling the driver. I got him when they reached Medical Associates and he said something about the hospital saying $90,000 to do CT Scan and X-ray. He then told me to wait and hang up," she recalled.

The next call she answered had her in tears after she heard the words 'brace yuh self.'

Start crying

"I said don't tell me that! I start crying and everybody in the yard start cry. He said this is not a good look and all the doctors and nurses came out of the room Fire was in and leave him in there. I asked why and he said 'from yuh see that what it tell yuh?," she recalled."Then he told me that he passed off."

Meanwhile, a niece described Fire as jovial.

"He always trouble me a lot about why I am getting fat and why I can't comb my hair. He's always playing with the children and you can talk to him about any little thing. Yesterday (Saturday) before he left, he gave me two pineapple because my son loves pineapple," his niece said.

"Him seh a sell me a sell yuh dem yah, enuh ... $600 fi dem. Sometime him come and seh 'cayliss gyal,' and I would say 'uncle yuh caa call me suh' and he would say 'alright caayliss gal,' she said laughing. "That's the kind of relationship we had. No war, just fun and jokes. I never see him upset yet," she said laughing.

The police have classified the incident as death by misadventure. They said that investigations are ongoing.

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