A guest worker was killed when a large tree branch fell on him as he was helping to cut back a row of casuarina trees in the Fairylands neighbourhood yesterday afternoon.

The 34-year-old was part of a team that had been cutting a row of trees that edged a private garden at Fairyland Road close to the Point Shares bridge.

During the early part of the afternoon the Portuguese man, who lived in Devonshire, fell and was then struck by a large branch that was being shorn from one of the trees.

An emergency call was made to Police at 2.10 p.m.

Bermuda Fire Service attended the scene to provide immediate medical assistance.

The victim was then taken from the scene in an unresponsive state by ambulance to the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

At the scene of the accident a landscaping truck, a long ladder and a fallen tree branch were still roped together as Police officers gathered details from other members of the landscaping team.

Three chainsaws were resting on the manicured lawn of the property close to a casuarina tree that the workers had been pruning at the time of the accident.

The incident is being treated as an industrial accident.

The man?s employer, Island Construction and Landscaping Services, is carrying out its own investigations into the circumstances of the tragedy.

Company owner Zane DeSilva said: ?We are still not clear about the specifics of what happened.

?We are devastated. This is the first time in 40 years that anything like this has occurred in our company.?

It is thought the owners of the property where the trees were being lopped were not at home at the time of the incident.

Mr. DeSilva confirmed the worker who died was not Bermudian, and said efforts were being made to contact the man?s family overseas.

Bermuda Police Service said that no further details about the victim would be released until the man?s next of kin had been informed.