Jesse Ramdeo

Waves of grief sud­den­ly tore through the par­ty-like at­mos­phere that of­ten grips Down the Is­lands on Sun­day, af­ter one teenag­er drowned and an­oth­er was rushed to hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent off Monos Is­land.

The de­ceased was iden­ti­fied as 17-year-old Evan Han­nays, a Form Five Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent. An­oth­er boy, 15, who al­so got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty while in the wa­ter, was at home last night af­ter be­ing dis­charged from hos­pi­tal, but his rel­a­tives said he re­mained se­vere­ly trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent.

The po­lice had ini­tial­ly in­di­cat­ed to Guardian Me­dia two out of three boys who were in­volved in the in­ci­dent had died but it was clar­i­fied yes­ter­day that on­ly one of them passed away.

Speak­ing un­der anonymi­ty yes­ter­day, the moth­er of the 15-year-old boy said he and the two oth­ers on­ly met while Down the Is­lands on Sun­day but formed an im­me­di­ate bond. The oth­er boy is al­so a Form Five Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent and is a good friend of Han­nays.

She said while play­ing out at sea around 1.30 pm, her son caught a cramp and swam back to the tour ves­sel they were on. How­ev­er, she said he no­ticed that while the oth­er boy made it to shore at Tur­tle Bay, Evan did not and an alarm was raised.

“They were swim­ming to­wards the shore and my son got a cramp so he turned back and called out to a rel­a­tive and a friend was sent to get him with a noo­dle, as he was tread­ing wa­ter back to the boat,” the moth­er re­called.

“He was bounc­ing to keep him­self afloat and he was pulled back in­to the boat and that’s when they no­ticed the oth­er child was on the shore and they called out for the friend and that’s when he swam back look­ing for the oth­er boy.”

An eye­wit­ness ac­count cap­tured the heart-break­ing scene which was shared on so­cial me­dia.

The man is heard say­ing, “This is the sit­u­a­tion down in Monos Is­land in the cor­ner in the co­conut, three young boys now jump off a boat, two went un­der, one didn’t make it.”

News of the tragedy, the moth­er said, left her in sham­bles.

She said, “I of­fer my heart­felt con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, you don’t ex­pect these things to hap­pen, this is a freak ac­ci­dent.”

The woman’s son, a St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege stu­dent, was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. She said due to the trau­ma of the event, she will be seek­ing ther­a­py for her son.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly was among those of­fer­ing con­do­lences to the Han­nays’ fam­i­ly.

Teach­ers and stu­dents of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege were in grief on Mon­day at school af­ter learn­ing of Han­nys’ death.

There was al­so an out­pour­ing of mes­sages of con­do­lences to his be­reaved fam­i­ly by par­ents on var­i­ous What­sApp groups of the school.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Form Five stu­dents at the school will al­so have ses­sions with of­fi­cials from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.