Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

A body­guard who res­cued a cou­ple who were swept away in their ve­hi­cle by flood­wa­ters last Thurs­day, is grate­ful that he was in the right place at the right time to save them.

The cou­ple Michael Gomes res­cued turned out to be long­time Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira, 89, and his wife Pearl, 83.

Last Thurs­day, heavy rains lead to flood­ing along the Mac­queripe Road in Ch­aguara­mas, lead­ing the riv­er to burst its banks.

At some stage dur­ing the flood­ing, Fer­reira and his wife were head­ing along the road­way in their Toy­ota Corol­la when they got to a point where the road was flood­ed and at­tempt­ed to cross in their ve­hi­cle. How­ev­er, the ve­hi­cle was swept away by the rag­ing flood­wa­ters.

“I got a phone call that an el­der­ly cou­ple dri­ving a bur­gundy Toy­ota Corol­la at­tempt­ed to cross the flood­ed wa­ters across the Mac­queripe main road. They were swept away in­to the flow­ing wa­ters,” Gomes told Guardian Me­dia in a voice note re­count­ing the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly called the in­spec­tor of the CDA (Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty), in­spec­tor Dole, in­form­ing him of the sit­u­a­tion, where he did in­form the army, Coast Guard and al­so an am­bu­lance. I al­so asked him for a map of that area and where the riv­er runs and leads to.”

Gomes told Guardian Me­dia that he was able to gain ac­cess to a tele­han­dler and op­er­a­tor from his boss to as­sist them in their ef­forts to res­cue the cou­ple. Gomes is the head of se­cu­ri­ty at the UP­ick Farms.

“Af­ter about half an hour of search, al­most 200 me­ters in­side the mud­dy ter­rain, we found the el­der­ly cou­ple. They were trau­ma­tised but okay,” Gomes said.

Gomes and the op­er­a­tor first re­moved the cou­ple from the ve­hi­cle and they were tak­en to the St James Med­ical Com­plex to be ex­am­ined. Gomes and his team of res­cuers then re­moved the ve­hi­cle from where it was lodged in the mud and shrub­bery.

“Good thing we were around that we could have saved them,” Gomes said.

A video of the re­moval of the video was post­ed on so­cial me­dia last week. At the time, how­ev­er, the so­cial me­dia users were un­aware of the events pri­or to the re­moval of the car from the flood­wa­ters and who was in­volved. The in­for­ma­tion of those in­volved in the fright­ful in­ci­dent came to light over the week­end.

Ef­forts to con­tact Fer­reira yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful as calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

This was the sec­ond time in re­cent weeks that per­sons has been swept away by flood­wa­ters.

Ear­li­er this month, Princes Town res­i­dent An­tho­ny Walkes died af­ter he was swept away by flood­wa­ters while cross­ing a bridge in Hard­bar­gain, Williamsville, as he got trapped in heavy rains while go­ing to see a rel­a­tive. His body was re­cov­ered in the Guaracara Riv­er days lat­er.