by Charles Gladden
POMONA, Stann Creek District, Wed. Aug. 31, 2022
An 8-year-old girl in Pomona, Stann Creek, was electrocuted this week while attempting to plug a television power cord into a defective extension cord. On the morning when the incident occurred, the little girl, Jacqueline Azucena Valdez, had apparently gotten her clothes wet while helping her mother, 32-year-old Yulma Portillo, to wash dishes outside. She had also been assisting customers at her family’s shop, which is located approximately 80 feet away from the family home.
It appears that, after doing those chores, Valdez went into the home and tried to plug the TV cord into the extension cord so that she could watch TV. It has been reported that earlier that morning she had asked her mother if she could watch TV, and Portillo, who was aware that the extension cord was defective, had told her not to do so. Little Jacqueline nonetheless, upon entering the home, picked up the extension cord, even though her clothing was soaked. Moments later, when Portillo didn’t hear anything from her daughter, she went into the home and saw her body lying across the living room floor.
Edwin Valdez, the father of the little girl, explained to a local reporter that he was at work when he got the shocking news that his child had been electrocuted.
“My wife called me and it was a quick call [and] all she said was that the baby got electrocuted, so I left work [and] rushed from work in my vehicle to home [and] when I got there I observed my baby was motionless. My wife was bringing her in her arms [and] it, so we rushed her to the Southern Regional Hospital, but at [that] moment I held her in my arms, I [had] a feeling that was already gone because she was motionless and her body was blue,” he said.
The extension cord that little Jacqueline used was not insulated, and consisted of exposed wires across which pieces of tape had been strapped. It was used primarily for construction work in the home and was stashed away, and whenever she wanted to watch TV, one of her parents would assist her.
“It’s a homemade extension cord. It was tapped with [an] electrical wire, but you know kids are kids, and there was a reason her mom told her not to watch TV, because she knew that the TV wasn’t accessible at the moment because there was no outlet to connect the TV right there and then. That’s the extension cord we would normally use for when we use tools or when [we] do our little construction at home; that’s the cord we use,” Jacqueline’s father explained.
There is a specific cord that the family would use to watch TV, but Valdez’s son had borrowed it the night before and had not yet returned it.
Valdez says that his daughter will be remembered as a loving and quiet child.
“Jaqueline will be remembered in the neighborhood and the church by our members and family members as a loving, always quiet, and obedient [girl]. Very smart. She wasn’t the type of girl that was running up and down; she was just always when you go anywhere, she would just be sitting by our side and not give any trouble. That’s why it has impacted us and the neighborhood of what happened,” he said.
Jaqueline was enrolled at Holy Angels Primary School, where next week she would have returned to the classroom as a standard three student. A post-mortem exam was conducted on her body on Tuesday, and the results indicated that her death was caused by respiratory failure due to electrical injury.
Jacqueline was the youngest of three siblings and her parents’ only daughter.