Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Mem­bers of the T&T Fire Ser­vice Search and Res­cue team, the Hunters Search and Res­cue team, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and vil­lagers were on Wednes­day night try­ing to lo­cate a farmer who was feared dead af­ter she was washed away by flood­wa­ters while at­tempt­ing to cross a ravine in Sur­rey Vil­lage, Lopinot.

Po­lice said There­sa Lynch, 44, and her 45-year-old broth­er William Ram­lo­gan were at­tempt­ing to cross the ravine, near Mc David Trace, around 1 pm to es­cape flood­wa­ters while re­turn­ing from her gar­den, when she slipped and fell in­to the rag­ing wa­ters.

Ram­lo­gan tried to res­cue her but his body was thrown against rocks be­cause of the cur­rent and he had to let go of Tere­sa’s hand to save his own life. Ram­lo­gan was even­tu­al­ly res­cued by oth­er farm­ers who had heard his cries for help but they could not find Lynch.

A search and res­cue mis­sion was im­me­di­ate­ly launched by Lopinot vil­lagers when they learned Lynch had been tak­en down­stream. They were lat­er joined by the Fire Ser­vice, po­lice and the Hunters Search and Res­cue team.

The search took the par­ty down­riv­er to the Ari­ma Riv­er, along the Ari­ma Old Road.

How­ev­er, mem­bers of the search par­ty told Guardian Me­dia they were not too op­ti­mistic that Lynch would be found alive con­sid­er­ing the wa­ter lev­el and the de­bris brought down in the ravine due to yes­ter­day’s flood­ing.

Dis­traught rel­a­tives milled around dur­ing the search hop­ing that their loved one had man­aged to find her way to safe­ty.

Lynch’s broth­er was ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal last night nurs­ing in­juries from at­tempt­ing to save his sis­ter.

This was not the on­ly in­ci­dent where some­one was swept away by flood­wa­ters yes­ter­day. A D’abadie man al­so es­caped death, af­ter he was res­cued from rag­ing flood­wa­ters by his nephew.