An employee of Fire Suppression Electrical Systems, a Gaborone based company, died on the spot while on a trip to Maun on Monday when a Botswana Telecommunication Corporation (BTC) extinguisher exploded and killed him instantly.
After arriving in Maun the previous day, three employees of the company went to BTC offices to repair fire extinguishers and fire hose reels. But the fire extinguisher, which many believe might have been over-filled, exploded and killed one of them. A colleague of the deceased, Dennis Madihele said they had just arrived at BTC when all of a sudden they heard a sound coming from where they had parked their service vehicle.
“We had just started work, and I was busy making updates on my job card when suddenly the deceased left to refill his fire extinguisher at our car in the parking lot,” said Madihele.
He added: “Soon after he left, we heard a huge noise coming from the direction of the car. We rushed to see what was happening and we found him already on the ground. He was clearly in excruciating pain and his liver and intestines were scattered all over the place. In no time he stopped moving and just lay there. Everything happened so fast and the whole experience was very traumatic.”
According to Madihele, the Maun trip was scheduled to last for three days before they could proceed to Ghanzi and later Tsabong. The incident was confirmed by Assistant Superintendent Boreteletse Papani of Maun Police.
He said when they arrived at the accident scene they found the fire extinguisher still stuck on the man’s chest and most of his body parts cut to pieces. Though he could not say as police investigations were still at a preliminary stage, Papani revealed that the deceased hails from Kgagodi but was based in Gaborone, where he worked as a technician at Fire Suppression Electrical Systems.
