St Lucia denies British family compensation for father's electrocution death because he was relieving himself
msn.comBritish family whose loved-one was fatally electrocuted on the basis that he was going to relieve himself at the time. Martin Ellis and his three teenage sons were trekking to a nature reserve on the Caribbean island in August 2019 when they were caught in a tropical rainstorm and took shelter under the eaves of a pumping station.
As the 68-year-old software designer was heading to the rear of the building to relieve himself, he came into contact with a metal pipe with an un-earthed electrical wire inside.
He let out a cry of shock, but died shortly after in front of one of his children. As well as his sons, Mr Ellis left behind a wife with progressive multiple sclerosis who requires round-the-clock care.
Despite an official engineer finding that the electrical set-up breached regulations and recommending its immediate replacement, the St Lucian government-owned Water and Sewerage Company (Wasco) is refusing to pay outPart of its defence is that Mr Ellis should not have been intending to urinate in public, arguing that to do so would have been "illegal, unsanitary and likely to be injurious to public health".
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