As the grieving families of the divers from weekend’s tragedy continue to reel in grief over the loss of their loved ones, they are having a difficult time relating the deaths to the victims’ young children.
An autopsy done on the body of the first diver, Yusef Henry, revealed he died from drowning.
The autopsy was conducted yesterday afternoon at the Forensic Science Centre (FSC) in St James.
The body of the fourth diver, Rishi Nagassar, was recovered shortly after midnight on Wednesday and subsequently taken to the FSC yesterday, where it was identified by Nagassar’s wife, Vanessa Kussia.
Kussia, after viewing the body, had to be assisted out of the centre’s building as she was overwhelmed with emotions and became very weak and exhausted.
Speaking with members of the media at the FSC, Henry’s father, Joseph, after receiving the autopsy results, said the situation remains heart-rending.
Henry said it was difficult for him on Wednesday to break the news to his grandchildren, his son’s children.
“Yesterday (Wednesday), the video came out showing the bodies and the little children would have gotten their hands on it and I have my granddaughter, seven years and another grandson ten years and well, when you tell him he is not believing his mother that his father is dead. The seven-year-old I had to tune her into it about how dogs does get bounce down and die, some of us does get old and die and everyone have to die.
“I showed her the picture of all five of them before they went down in the water and I told her that they died, they drowned and her face drooped and she just got sad. She did not cry like me.”
Henry said all the agencies and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had failed them.
He said, “I am a contractor and anything go on in the work I am to blame and only I am to blame. So, Mr Keith Rowley, you is my prime minister, yea, you Mr Keith Christopher Rowley, my prime minister, you is the father of this country, I am the father of my family, anything go on with my family I does feel it, anything go on with Trinidad you, Mister Rowley, supposed to feel it and if you don’t feel it you is not a father you just there as a father figure. Like some dead-beat father because you are not coming out and talking.”
“They left them to dead boy. They leave them to dead. Can you explain something like this to your seven-year-old?” he added as he broke down crying.
“All of them have failed them.”
Henry vowed to join people who were lighting candles in solidarity for the divers.
“I just want the people who are there to protect us to know that we are standing up for one another,” he said.
Kussia’s aunt, Anji Benjamin, after assisting a grieving Kussia to a vehicle, explained that Nagassar’s three-year-old son was yet to know that his father would not be coming home.
“He took out all his toys that his daddy bought for him for Christmas and was playing with everything. The family did not keep Rishi’s vehicle on the compound so the child would understand that his daddy is not back yet. They had it housed at somebody else’s house. They said even if he is half asleep or playing anywhere inside, the minute he hear the sound of that van he knows his father is coming but again that is the cruelty of what we experienced.”
Benjamin lamented that “it was sad to see that nobody pressured the company on Saturday to ensure that somebody went down and every other experienced diver will tell you that the chances of them being alive on Saturday were super high.”
“This is the highest injustice I have ever seen. No one is answering. No OSHA is here to ask questions. There is no accountability and OSHA should be all over Paria right now. There are other lives in there. There are other men in there that’s working on that same berth. What is OSHA saying to us? What is Paria’s operations management doing down there?
“And if you speak to the insiders, the employees they will tell you nothing,” Benjamin added.
On Monday, the bodies of Yusef Henry, Fyzal Kurban and Kazim Ali Jr were recovered.
The bodies were positively identified by family members at the FSC on Tuesday.
Joseph was identified by a tattoo on the chest marked “Outlaw” by his father Joseph Henry.
Kurban was identified by his wife Celisha by a watch he was wearing and Ali Jr’s body was identified by a jersey.
