Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

What be­gan as a joy­ous an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion in To­ba­go near­ly end­ed in tragedy on Sun­day when two boats col­lid­ed at high speed near Pi­geon Point, leav­ing nine peo­ple in­jured, in­clud­ing four for­eign na­tion­als.

The ac­ci­dent oc­curred around 5.43 pm in a nar­row chan­nel just out­side the des­ig­nat­ed bathing area at the pop­u­lar beach. It was the sec­ond ma­jor ma­rine in­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point in five months.

Among those se­ri­ous­ly in­jured was Venezue­lan na­tion­al Massy Sanchez, who suf­fered a frac­tured skull and ver­te­brae. Sanchez was aboard the Gamechang­er ves­sel with her hus­band and friends when it col­lid­ed with Wa­ter Junkie, a boat owned by Wa­ter­holics.

The im­pact hurled Sanchez in­to the sec­ond ves­sel, while sev­er­al of her friends were thrown vi­o­lent­ly in­to the sea, some land­ing with­in the re­strict­ed swim­ming area near shocked beach­go­ers.

Sanchez said two of her friends have since been trans­ferred to Trinidad for surgery. One suf­fered a bro­ken jaw, while an­oth­er lost sev­er­al teeth. Her hus­band, Avin Bis­soon­dath, es­caped be­ing thrown over­board but sus­tained a bro­ken leg dur­ing the col­li­sion.

Speak­ing from her hos­pi­tal bed in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, Sanchez ex­pressed grat­i­tude for sur­viv­ing the or­deal along­side her hus­band and friends.

She told Guardian Me­dia the group had hired the boat for a day of sight­see­ing, and vis­it­ed No Man’s Land and Ny­lon Pool as part of a cel­e­bra­tion mark­ing a friend’s wed­ding an­niver­sary. Their fi­nal stop was to have been Store Bay.

In­stead, dis­as­ter struck.

Sanchez re­called re­gain­ing con­scious­ness in an­oth­er boat, racked with pain and sur­round­ed by con­fu­sion.

“I fly out the boat I was com­ing in and in­to the next boat, and they couldn’t find me. I was on the floor and the boat was sink­ing, it was flood­ing,” she re­called.

“I thought I was go­ing to die. I opened my eyes and couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t talk. I start­ed pray­ing, ‘Please, God, don’t let me die here.’”

She said she tried call­ing out for help but her in­juries left her bare­ly able to speak.

“Sud­den­ly, I heard my hus­band’s voice and I kind of re­act­ed, ‘Amor, I’m here.’”

Sanchez was even­tu­al­ly res­cued from the ves­sel and placed on a ta­ble be­fore los­ing con­scious­ness again.

The San Fer­nan­do bar own­er blamed the ac­ci­dent on reck­less­ness and neg­li­gence.

“I think the peo­ple here are too reck­less and neg­li­gent. They dri­ve how­ev­er they want. They want to speed, they want to do what­ev­er they like. They’re not think­ing about the tourists.”

De­spite the trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence, Sanchez praised the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal staff for the qual­i­ty of their care.

“They gave us re­al­ly good at­ten­tion. They checked every­thing: CT scans, X-rays, blood tests, vi­tal signs, every­thing.”

Among the first re­spon­ders was Dr Ian Roop­nar­ine, chief sur­geon at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, who hap­pened to be at the beach when the col­li­sion oc­curred. Work­ing along­side life­guards and nurs­es, he helped as­sess and sta­bilise the in­jured.

Roop­nar­ine com­mend­ed health of­fi­cials for their swift re­sponse to the mass-ca­su­al­ty in­ci­dent, not­ing pa­tients were triaged and treat­ed ac­cord­ing to the sever­i­ty of their in­juries.

A reg­u­lar vis­i­tor to To­ba­go, he al­so urged au­thor­i­ties to strength­en en­force­ment of ma­rine safe­ty reg­u­la­tions, warn­ing re­peat­ed in­ci­dents could dam­age the coun­try’s tourism in­dus­try.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has very good laws and rules, but at the same time, en­force­ment of these rules is im­por­tant. If there is no en­force­ment, then we’re spin­ning top in mud,” he said.

“If this non­sense con­tin­ues, who knows what’s go­ing to hap­pen the next time. It’s on­ly five months since we lost some­body.”

Roop­nar­ine was re­fer­ring to the April 8 jet-ski ac­ci­dent that claimed the life of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie.

Trinida­di­an vis­i­tor Natasha Lamy, who wit­nessed Sun­day’s col­li­sion, was out­raged af­ter see­ing a fish­ing boat en­ter the bathing area at Store Bay the fol­low­ing day while she and her rel­a­tives were swim­ming.

Still shak­en by what she had wit­nessed, Lamy ques­tioned the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“My sons are six-foot-three and they swim there all the time. That’s where they feel com­fort­able,” Lamy said.

“You have the whole sea to cast your nets. They were cast­ing with­in the buoy mark­ers. With yes­ter­day’s ac­ci­dent fresh in every­body’s mind, where’s the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty?”

An­oth­er Trinida­di­an vis­i­tor, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, de­scribed the re­cur­ring in­ci­dents as alarm­ing and dam­ag­ing to To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion.

“A child dies, a par­ent is in­jured, and now you have an in­ci­dent where so many tourists are hurt. This is reck­less­ness. The sit­u­a­tion is crazy and it needs to be ad­dressed.”

Op­er­a­tor calls for no-wake zone

Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett yes­ter­day ex­tend­ed sym­pa­thy to the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies and wished those in­jured a speedy re­cov­ery.

In a state­ment, Hack­ett thanked life­guards, first re­spon­ders, med­ical per­son­nel and mem­bers of the pub­lic for their as­sis­tance fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

She ac­knowl­edged that in the ab­sence of leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing ma­rine ac­tiv­i­ty at Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, en­sur­ing safe­ty re­mains a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Hack­ett said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) would con­tin­ue strength­en­ing op­er­a­tional pro­to­cols, en­forc­ing fa­cil­i­ty guide­lines, main­tain­ing sig­nage and ad­vo­cat­ing for greater over­sight to pro­tect both vis­i­tors and res­i­dents.

Mean­while, vet­er­an tour op­er­a­tor Michael Frank, own­er of Frankie Tours, blamed ex­ces­sive speed for the col­li­sion and called for ur­gent ac­tion to im­prove safe­ty on To­ba­go’s wa­ter­ways.

The THA passed the To­ba­go Ma­rine Park Bill in April, but it has not yet been de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment.

“Al­though we know leg­is­la­tion is com­ing, we have to do some­thing to make this area a no-wake zone,” Frank said.

“As it stands, you can trav­el as fast as you like, and one side of the chan­nel is used by bathers while the oth­er is bor­dered by reef and a sand­bank.”

He said To­ba­go still has “a long way to go” in im­prov­ing its tourism prod­uct.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk yes­ter­day said po­lice have launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the col­li­sion and not­ed that hu­man er­ror may have been a con­tribut­ing fac­tor.