By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Staff Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

A 42-year-old Water and Sewerage Corporation employee died during a freak accident in Sweeting’s Cay over the weekend.

Tony Lamont Scriven, manager of the corporation in Abaco, was inspecting the water plant with several other employees on Saturday morning when a water tank collapsed and fell on him around 10am. 

He was overseeing the inspection of the new reverse osmosis plant and the three water tanks that store 20,000 gallons of water on the cay. 

 Assistant Commissioner of Police Bernard Bonamy, Jr, and a team of investigators travelled to Sweeting’s Cay after the incident.

 ACP Bonamy told reporters that Scriven was making a call when the middle tank suddenly collapsed and landed on him. The man reportedly went under a concrete structure bolstering the tank to shield from the rain. 

 Police, assisted by some residents, removed his body under the tank. A medical doctor pronounced him dead.

 ACP Bonamy said the police will work closely with the Ministry of Works to determine what caused the structure to collapse.

 The police will take the body to Grand Bahama for official identification and an autopsy on Monday.

 Darius Curry, a two-year WSC employee, accompanied Scriven to Sweeting’s Cay. He described his boss as diligent.

 “He was a great loss to us,” said the 24-year-old. “He was young, smart, and always believed in getting the work done first: work before play. He used to organise these projects and encouraged us younger workers to go to the Family Islands for more experience and exposure in different systems because we do not have a reverse osmosis system in Abaco.”

 According to Curry, Scriven was also a family man with a wife and four children.

 His death shocked Abaco.

 “The community on Abaco is devastated following the loss of a well-known young man who was in charge of the WSC,” said Pastor Silbert Mills, a prominent leader on the island.

 Scriven was not an Abaco native, but relocated there with his wife, who is from Murphy Town.

 Sweeting’s Cay has experienced severe water shortage issues in the past. WSC Assistant General Manager for the Family Islands Division Gregory Stubbs said in 2021 that Samaritan’s Purse and CORE, two non-governmental organisations, donated a new reverse osmosis system and four water storage tanks to address the issue.