Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

When Lau­ra Je­re­mi­ah heard that her five-year-old grand­son got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties in a pool at a wa­ter park, she fell to her knees and prayed that he would sur­vive.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, lit­tle D’amari Jef­fery lat­er died at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal while re­ceiv­ing treat­ment.

D’amari had gone with his moth­er Ani­ka George, his nine-year-old broth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives to the Fun Splash Wa­ter Park in Debe on Sun­day to cel­e­brate his cousin’s sec­ond birth­day. There were pool at­ten­dants on du­ty but rel­a­tives are still ques­tion­ing why no life­guards are em­ployed at the wa­ter park, since they be­lieve had this been the case, lit­tle D’amari could have been saved.

At the child’s home at Bas­ta Hill, La Brea, yes­ter­day, D’amari’s grand­moth­er Lau­ra Je­re­mi­ah and great grand­moth­er, 73-year-old Mon­i­ca Je­re­mi­ah, were over­come with grief. D’amari’s moth­er Ani­ka George was al­so too dis­traught to speak with re­porters. He was the last of her four chil­dren; her el­dest is 16 years old.

Still in dis­be­lief over her grand­son’s death, Je­re­mi­ah said the chil­dren were in the pool but they were be­ing mon­i­tored by adults. She was at an­oth­er sec­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty when she saw a com­mo­tion around 4 pm and heard her daugh­ter bawl­ing.

“When I walk I just hear my daugh­ter bawl­ing. By the time she start to bawl I re­alise some­thing was wrong. I start to bawl al­so and when I peep, I see a crowd around and when I watch I see my lil grand­son. I just left and went in some mud and I just start to pray. I pray. I pray.”

The grand­moth­er said sev­er­al strangers went to her grand­son’s as­sis­tance and per­formed CPR. When her grand­son left in the am­bu­lance, she said he was breath­ing.

Je­re­mi­ah said could not say who ex­act­ly was with D’amari in the pool, but she said there were adults in the pool.

“It had a set of big peo­ple there with him. It had par­ents, moth­ers with their chil­dren, every­body was there with him. I can­not ac­tu­al­ly say be­cause there was more than one per­son was there. I don’t know if he slipped away be­cause is a pool. Is boys...,” she said.

The grand­moth­er, how­ev­er, was dis­ap­point­ed that there were no life­guards on du­ty.

“They need life­guards there. I feel like when things like that hap­pen, I feel they should even have an am­bu­lance stand­ing by on those oc­ca­sions be­cause is kids, any­thing could hap­pen and they need prop­er life­guards there be­cause at the split mo­ment, some­times par­ents could just turn their face. I mean any­thing do hap­pen.”

George’s best friend, Teris­sa Wal­dron, al­so de­fend­ed her (George) in the face of harsh and in­sen­si­tive state­ments from peo­ple about the in­ci­dent on so­cial me­dia.

“She is a very hard­work­ing woman and she goes all out for her chil­dren. Things hap­pen, it al­ready hap­pen. She is not that mon­ster that they por­tray­ing her to be on so­cial me­dia,” Wal­dron said.

Je­re­mi­ah added that she was not blam­ing any­one for what hap­pened.

“God giveth and God taketh. God alone knows what is the rea­son. Some­times we sit there and we judge and we judge and we say things that we not sup­posed to say, God Almighty alone know the rea­son.”

She said D’amari had just start­ed at La Brea RC School and was full of love.

Lend­ing sup­port to the fam­i­ly, Brighton/Ves­signy coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis was al­so dis­ap­point­ed that there were no life­guards on du­ty.

“As a lo­ca­tion that usu­al­ly keeps these kind of events and have slides, it is your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to have your staff on hand and be alert for any mishaps or mis­for­tune that may hap­pen.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, it was open for busi­ness. Pool at­ten­dants were pa­trolling and there were signs in­di­cat­ing that chil­dren must be su­per­vised and that no life­guards were on du­ty.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to the own­er Vi­jai Ra­mai, he said the pool at­ten­dants have ba­sic train­ing but that they had no life­guards at the park

He said it was a trag­ic time for the fam­i­ly and he will be reach­ing out to them very soon to as­sist them in any way pos­si­ble.

“We will try our best to stay as long as we could stay once we are al­lowed in the grief cy­cle of the par­ents,” he said.