A Santa Cruz man was up to last night listed in a critical condition after he was doused with a flammable substance and set ablaze yesterday during a fight.
According to police reports, around 11 am, 35-year-old Mike Victor, of Tappin Street, Santa Cruz was standing along Back Street near his girlfriend’s home when a 24-year-old man threw a bucket of liquid on him and set him afire.
The suspect surrendered to Santa Cruz police after the incident.
Victor ran into his in-laws’ yard where his girlfriend and mother of his two children, Kamie Sorzano, doused him with a bucket of water.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, relatives of Sorzano said Victor had earlier been “advantaging” his attacker.
The attacker they said was a “smallie fella” and Victor, whose alias is “Biggs” was twice his size and strength.
The relatives said Victor had threatened to beat up the suspect.
“I don’t know what happened I just hear ‘voom’ and see Biggs on fire. I dunno if is gas or pitch-oil he throw on him, but it could have been worse next thing (suspect name called) had a gun. To me it was an act of provocation,” an eyewitness said.
A relative said Victor was in a bad mood. Earlier, he said, Victor had hit the suspect a clout causing him to hit his head against a concrete wall. The relative said Victor and the suspect would normally lime together and would usually have disputes but it never became physical.
“What happened was a frustrated man went around a more frustrated man, you never know what going on in a man head,” the man said.
Sorzano, who was on her way home from the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, said in a telephone interview that Victor was given a 40 per cent chance of survival and had to be sedated at the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. He suffered third-degree burns.
She recalled she just heard “an explosion” and saw the father of her children running towards her in flames.
“I was outside bathing with my children and I see him coming running and grab a bucket of water and out him one time. He was just bawling his skin burning,” Sorzano said.
