RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Vanes­sa Kus­sia, the wife of div­er Rishi Na­gas­sar, broke down in tears and was in­con­solable out­side the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (FSC) in St James yes­ter­day, af­ter she re­alised that her hus­band’s body was not amongst the three bod­ies re­cov­ered on Mon­day fol­low­ing the div­ing tragedy that oc­curred off Pointe-a-Pierre last Fri­day.

Ac­com­pa­nied by oth­er rel­a­tives, Kus­sia went to the FSC ear­ly yes­ter­day hope­ful that her hus­band’s body was among those re­cov­ered. How­ev­er, it turned out that he was still miss­ing and the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Paria) was con­tin­u­ing with op­er­a­tions to re­cov­er him.

The three divers re­cov­ered were iden­ti­fied as Yusef Hen­ry, Fyzal Kur­ban and Kaz­im Ali Jr. Their bod­ies were pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied by fam­i­ly mem­bers at the FSC yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, due to the man­gled state of the bod­ies from the trau­ma they ex­pe­ri­enced in the pipeline, fam­i­ly mem­bers had to use al­ter­na­tive means to iden­ti­fy them.

Hen­ry was iden­ti­fied by a tat­too on the chest that said “Out­law,” by his fa­ther Joseph Hen­ry.

Kur­ban was iden­ti­fied by his wife Cel­isha via a watch he was wear­ing and Ali Jr’s body was iden­ti­fied by a jer­sey he had on at the time.

Apart from be­ing se­vere­ly dis­tort­ed/dis­fig­ured, Guardian Me­dia was told the bod­ies were al­so still most­ly cov­ered in crude oil.

There were mixed emo­tions among fam­i­ly mem­bers out­side the FSC yes­ter­day. Some were seen cry­ing un­con­trol­lably and be­ing com­fort­ed by their rel­a­tives.

Hen­ry’s fa­ther, Joseph, af­ter iden­ti­fy­ing his son’s body, emerged from the build­ing look­ing up to the sky and clap­ping loud­ly. He then sat on a con­crete bench where he cried, even­tu­al­ly calm­ing him­self.

“We’ve come to clo­sure now. Yusef is dead. May God bless his soul, Joseph said.

“All the oth­er men, may God bless their souls and may the fam­i­ly and chil­dren of these men be pro­tect­ed by God Almighty.

“And you guys and T&T, I am warn­ing all you that the rain fall on my house now, but it go fall on all yuh house. If we stay as a sep­a­rate and a hate­ful na­tion, we will die one by one.”

He added, “They (of­fi­cials) warned us that what we are go­ing to see. I walked in and he was there. My son has tat­toos in parts of his body, neck, chest, arms. The first one I saw was on his chest. It mark ‘Out­law’ on his chest. I know well for sure that is my son. But when I watch that face, it was black like night, dis­fig­ured.”

Hen­ry said on Sat­ur­day he felt good in his heart to see how many peo­ple had come out to sup­port them. How­ev­er, he fur­ther ex­plained that at the same time, he felt so hurt that a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar com­pa­ny could not have giv­en them any word.

“Not even a bot­tle of wa­ter. But they on the ra­dio and TV. Mr (Stu­art) Young came and talk to us but did he talk to me? Where was the con­ver­sa­tion I had with Mr Young. But he didn’t talk to the Hen­ry fam­i­ly. It was just a cor­dial thing. I tell him he look­ing young and that was it, he went on and talk to the oth­ers,” Hen­ry said with tears in his eyes.

An emotional Joseph Henry, father of Yusef Henry, after viewing the body at the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“This morn­ing I had a bot­tle of wrath to drink. And right now I re­main a God-fear­ing per­son. I re­main a lov­ing man in my heart for every­body. And I want T&T to know, we need to get up and stand up for one an­oth­er.”

He said he now has nine grand­chil­dren to take care and added that Yusef was his third child to have died in months.

“One of my sons died from can­cer and the oth­er from co­mor­bidi­ties.”

Michael Kur­ban, who was the div­er who res­cued the lone sur­vivor, Christo­pher Boodram, was al­so present at the FSC.

Kur­ban is the son of de­ceased div­er Fyzal.

In a brief in­ter­view, Kur­ban called for jus­tice and for the truth to pre­vail in this sit­u­a­tion.

“Me and my oth­er two divers, we worked to­geth­er to save him, not me alone,” Kur­ban re­called.

“When I dive that day it was just to res­cue every­one. We want­ed to res­cue all the guys but the high­er au­thor­i­ties, Paria man­age­ment, they give or­ders and Coast Guard came af­ter and stop us from con­tin­u­ing div­ing.

“They didn’t let us. They said we had no au­thor­i­ty to con­tin­ue div­ing but it’s on my mind all the time right now. I’m try­ing to sleep but Paria need to get their facts straight cause it seems like they ly­ing to the me­dia and it’s just false in­for­ma­tion.

“You need to talk to Christo­pher Boodram. He will ex­plain every­thing to y’all. I’m keep­ing in con­tact with his fam­i­ly but I haven’t heard from him di­rect­ly since.”

Fyzal’s wife, Cel­isha, who was al­so very emo­tion­al af­ter view­ing her hus­band’s body, spoke of how she and her hus­band were in­sep­a­ra­ble.

“We drank cof­fee to­geth­er. He nev­er once quar­relled with the chil­dren and they are in their 30s and 20s. Any­thing they want­ed he said go ahead,” Cel­isha said.

“He dive all over the Caribbean, in St Lu­cia, St Mar­tin, To­ba­go, he helped them dredge the port in To­ba­go for the big ships to come in. He worked every­where in the Caribbean. He’s been div­ing since the 90s. What they were to do Sat­ur­day they didn’t do,” she added.

Cel­isha dis­closed that the au­top­sies were yet to be done as they need­ed to iden­ti­fy and swab the men for COVID-19.

Ali’s fam­i­ly mem­bers, who were al­so at the FSC, did not speak to the me­dia present.

Na­gas­sar’s un­cle, coun­cil­lor Al­lan ‘Taxi’ Seep­er­sad, lament­ed that the com­pa­ny did not have the cour­tesy to call the fam­i­lies and say that they had found three bod­ies and wait­ing for the last one.

“It was some­one who heard it on­line called my niece and she told us. When she re­ceived that call she faint­ed away,” Seep­er­sad said.

“But I want to say jus­tice has to take place. And it is un­fair to know the fam­i­ly go­ing through this try­ing times. I was there since Fri­day af­ter­noon. The se­cu­ri­ty, when we went, had no clue, no in­for­ma­tion of what hap­pened. We went back Sat­ur­day, spent night till Sun­day and no in­for­ma­tion.”

Seep­er­sad said the fam­i­ly was al­so promised sev­er­al things by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

“He promised things would be put in place and es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion but noth­ing was done up to last night (Mon­day), we run­ning from gate to car park over and over,” he said.

“The com­pa­ny and the Gov­ern­ment, the Min­is­ter and the Prime Min­is­ter and even the Pres­i­dent, if she has a heart to know what this fam­i­ly is go­ing through, what this na­tion is go­ing through, and to shake up the com­pa­ny and shake up the Gov­ern­ment. They have fam­i­lies frus­trat­ed. Imag­ine po­lice and reg­i­ment brought to where we have sor­row and all we do­ing is ask­ing for in­for­ma­tion,” he added.

Seep­er­sad said Na­gas­sar’s three-year-old child kept call­ing for her fa­ther.

“And whole week­end they just have us in the dark. They send­ing press re­lease but telling us noth­ing and we held out hope eh. Up to this morn­ing, sun above me, we had hope,” he said.

Up to this mo­ment we still eh say ac­cept it. We haven’t said this is the end of Rishi but we call him Ryan.

“I want to say to the Prime Min­is­ter and the En­er­gy Min­is­ter and the man­age­ment of Paria to know that when chil­dren’s tears fall, judge­ment is right there and we have to pay for that.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA) said it was in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter in­de­pen­dent­ly.

It said that at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4 pm on Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 25), the OSH Agency re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion from Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed of an ac­ci­dent in which five divers em­ployed by the con­trac­tor LM­CS be­came trapped in­side of one of the com­pa­ny’s pipelines while per­form­ing main­te­nance works. The ac­ci­dent, it not­ed, re­sult­ed in four fa­tal­i­ties.

The agency said that it im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond­ed to the re­port and was led by its Chief In­spec­tor, who at­tend­ed the scene of the ac­ci­dent im­me­di­ate­ly up­on no­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“The agency has al­ready ini­ti­at­ed its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this ac­ci­dent in the con­text of the du­ties and re­quire­ments of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act Chap­ter 88:08 and to seek to de­ter­mine the cause,” OS­HA said.

“OS­HA ex­tends its sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies and loved ones of the de­ceased and re­mains com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing the pro­tec­tion of the safe­ty and health of all per­sons in work­places in Trinidad and To­ba­go and com­pli­ance with the OSH Act,” it added.

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