2007.12.10: December 10, 2007: Headlines: COS - Suriname: Fallen: Obituaries: Safety: Chicago Daily Tribune: Authorities in suriname probe trap-death of Peace Corps Volunteer Blythe O'Sullivan
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2007.12.10: December 10, 2007: Headlines: COS - Suriname: Fallen: Obituaries: Safety: Chicago Daily Tribune: Authorities in suriname probe trap-death of Peace Corps Volunteer Blythe O'Sullivan
Authorities in suriname probe trap-death of Peace Corps Volunteer Blythe O'Sullivan
Officials with the Peace Corps and Surinamese authorities continue to investigate the incident. Local prosecutors Saturday said the villager who laid the wired trap -- an illegal, albeit common method of clearing wild game from farms in the remote countryside -- could face prosecution even if the death is ruled accidental. "We are treating it as an accident," Peace Corps spokesman Richard Parker said. "We always send our investigators just to make sure we know exactly what happened." O'Sullivan enlisted with the Peace Corps in May 2006 and soon headed to the South American country slightly larger than Georgia. There, she partnered with local women to fund and develop a village community center and a potable water project. Many of those women were with her in the farm fields Thursday and reported her death to area Peace Corps officials, Parker said. The organization's deputy director notified O'Sullivan's parents late that night.
Authorities in suriname probe trap-death of Peace Corps Volunteer Blythe O'Sullivan
Surinamese authorities probe trap-death of Peace Corps aide from Illinois
Suriname volunteer from Bloomingdale shot by animal trap
By Tara Malone, Tribune staff reporter. The Associated Press contributed to this report
December 10, 2007
About 3,000 miles from the tidy, west suburban home where she was raised, Peace Corps volunteer Blythe Ann O'Sullivan worked in fields alongside farmers deep in the tropical countryside of Suriname.
She wrestled with weeds, watered plants and tended to the harvest in a northern village.
O'Sullivan, 25, died in those fields Thursday, shot when she accidentally tripped an animal trap rigged with a gun, Peace Corps administrators and published reports confirmed Sunday. The Bloomingdale native reportedly was injured in the thigh and hemorrhaged before she could get treatment.
Officials with the Peace Corps and Surinamese authorities continue to investigate the incident. Local prosecutors Saturday said the villager who laid the wired trap -- an illegal, albeit common method of clearing wild game from farms in the remote countryside -- could face prosecution even if the death is ruled accidental.
"We are treating it as an accident," Peace Corps spokesman Richard Parker said. "We always send our investigators just to make sure we know exactly what happened."
O'Sullivan enlisted with the Peace Corps in May 2006 and soon headed to the South American country slightly larger than Georgia. There, she partnered with local women to fund and develop a village community center and a potable water project. Many of those women were with her in the farm fields Thursday and reported her death to area Peace Corps officials, Parker said. The organization's deputy director notified O'Sullivan's parents late that night.
O'Sullivan last saw her parents, John and Joan, when she returned for a family wedding in August.
In one of her final telephone conversations with her parents, O'Sullivan said, according to a news statement: "Here, each waking moment must be spent satisfying basic needs that, in the U.S., are virtually satisfied at birth."
The U.S. Embassy in Suriname and O'Sullivan's family members declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Peace Corps. A family friend who answered the O'Sullivan's door in the quiet cul-de-sac described them as an "incredibly tight-knit family" devastated by their loss.
O'Sullivan graduated from Bradley University in Peoria in 2004, where she studied marketing and theater, according to the Peace Corps. She worked for two years as an event coordinator in Denver before joining the international service organization.
"I want the people I am working with to know that I want to learn their culture and participate in it," O'Sullivan wrote in a personal statement prepared by incoming volunteers.
O'Sullivan was one of 41 Peace Corps workers in Suriname. The organization created a foothold in the coastal country 12 years ago. Since then, more than 250 volunteers have helped development among the indigenous people and Maroons, communities descended from African slaves brought to the former Dutch colony who escaped into the region's interior.
In Suriname, counseling services are being provided to Peace Corps volunteers, and a memorial observance is being planned, Parker said.
More than 260 workers have died since the overseas service project launched in 1961, according to the Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers Memorial Project. O'Sullivan is the fourth this year, Parker said.
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tmalone@tribune.com
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Headlines: December, 2007; Peace Corps Suriname; Directory of Suriname RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Suriname RPCVs; Fallen; Obituaries; Safety and Security of Volunteers
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| Director Ron Tschetter: The PCOL Interview Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter sat down for an in-depth interview to discuss the evacuation from Bolivia, political appointees at Peace Corps headquarters, the five year rule, the Peace Corps Foundation, the internet and the Peace Corps, how the transition is going, and what the prospects are for doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011. Read the interview and you are sure to learn something new about the Peace Corps. PCOL previously did an interview with Director Gaddi Vasquez. |
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Story Source: Chicago Daily Tribune
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Suriname; Fallen; Obituaries; Safety
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