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Friday, May 2, 2025

Tragic end to family lime

Body of San­gre Grande teen found on Pen­zance Beach

by

753 days ago
20230410
This man looks at the massive waves while bathing at Maracas Beach on Friday. Trinidad and Tobago remains under a rough sea warning until midday Tuesday.

This man looks at the massive waves while bathing at Maracas Beach on Friday. Trinidad and Tobago remains under a rough sea warning until midday Tuesday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

RALPH BAN­WARIE and KEVON FELMINE

Hours af­ter he got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty and dis­ap­peared un­der wa­ter while bathing with friends, the body of 18-year-old De­clan Estra­da was found washed up on Pen­zance Beach, Ram­panal­gas, yes­ter­day morn­ing. The body was found not too far from where he drowned by a search team com­pris­ing mem­bers of Hunters Search and Res­cue and some of the teens rel­a­tives who be­gan comb­ing the beach from as ear­ly as 6 am on Sun­day be­fore spot­ting the life­less body close to the shore.

The To­co po­lice was in­formed and Sgt Ed­wards, Cpls Bha­gan and Bai­ley, PCs Singh, Dan­drade and West re­spond­ed. Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Chan Chow viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, pend­ing an au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre, St James, lat­er this week.

Estra­da, of Fitts Trace, Coalmine, San­gre Grande, a for­mer stu­dent of Hol­ly Cross Col­lege, Ari­ma, was at a fam­i­ly lime when the tragedy oc­curred at around 3.30 pm on Sat­ur­day. Vil­lagers im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan search­ing the wa­ter for but were un­suc­cess­ful.

A search par­ty com­pris­ing T&T Coast Guard divers, the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team and fish­er­men from the area searched for Estra­da but had to aban­don those ef­forts as night ap­proached.

At the fam­i­ly’s home at Coalmine yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives were in­con­solable. Estra­da’s who could bare­ly speak, said the teen’s moth­er had gone of Ram­panal­gas where the body was found. His fa­ther lives in the Unit­ed States.

Rel­a­tives said Estra­da, who would have cel­e­brat­ed his 19th birth­day on April 17, was “the best boy in the vil­lage.

As news of the drown­ing spread through­out the com­mu­ni­ty, a vil­lager at a near­by shop ex­pressed sad­ness at the loss: “He too young and bril­liant to die. He gone too soon.”

Neigh­bours de­scribed Estra­da as re­spectable, hum­ble and al­ways po­lite, es­pe­cial­ly with the el­der­ly.

Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion at beach­es across the coun­try in the wake of that drow­ing, life­guard told Guardian Me­dia there were no ma­jor in­ci­dents at the nine beach­es around Trinidad where there are life­guards. Through­out this long week­end, there are life­guards pa­trol Mara­cas Bay, Las Cuevas Bay, Ma­yaro Beach, Man­zanil­la Beach, Saly­bia Bay, To­co Beach, Quinam Beach, Los Iros Beach and Ves­signy Beach. How­ev­er, Pen­zance is not a beach where the Life­guard Ser­vices Di­vi­sion de­ploys its mem­bers.

The life­guard said even at beach­es where there are pa­trols, beach­go­ers should seek in­for­ma­tion about sea con­di­tions and the ar­eas that are safe for bathing. He said a lack of knowl­edge is usu­al­ly the rea­son why peo­ple en­counter dif­fi­cul­ties at the beach­es. An­oth­er fac­tor is over con­sump­tion of al­co­hol.

He said riv­er mouths are al­so dan­ger­ous as there is back­wash which can cause peo­ple to ex­pe­ri­ence prob­lems.

“At some beach­es, the cur­rent in the wa­ter can im­pede peo­ple’s abil­i­ty to swim. That can hap­pen, es­pe­cial­ly on beach­es which are usu­al­ly more dan­ger­ous. I would ad­vise peo­ple, once they are on a beach.

The life­guard ad­vised that there are usu­al­ly red flags and red and yel­low flags. Red and yel­low flags in­di­cate that beach­go­ers can bathe there cau­tious­ly and that life­guards are pa­trolling the area. Red flags mean it is un­safe and the life­guard pa­trol zone ends there.

He said a ma­jor is­sue is that some peo­ple ig­nore life­guards’ in­struc­tions.

“They feel they are more than the life­guard, but the life­guard is there for their safe­ty,” he said.

The life­guard said many peo­ple flocked to the beach­es from Good Fri­day, in­clud­ing campers gath­er­ing on the shores and banks of rivers lead­ing to the beach­es.

“On a pub­lic hol­i­day, more peo­ple are on beach­es than usu­al. When schools close, we have more vis­i­tors to the beach than when it is open. Un­til about April 16 or 17, we will have a lot of peo­ple on the beach­es,” he said.

Fol­low­ing this hol­i­day week­end, pa­trol cap­tains will meet with their su­pe­ri­ors to do a post-mortem of their cov­er­age.

Ahead of the long East­er week­end, Pres­i­dent of the life­guard branch of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) Au­gus­tus Sylvester had warned cit­i­zens to re­think their beach­go­ing plans since the coun­try’s beach­es are gross­ly un­der­manned and seabathers are at risk. Ac­cord­ing to Sylvester, there are about 90 life­guards to man the ten beach­es in Trinidad. He said for the ser­vice to prop­er­ly func­tion at least 150 life­guards are need­ed.

Last Oc­to­ber, in re­sponse to ques­tions from the Op­po­si­tion dur­ing a ses­sion of Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Minuis­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said steps were be­ing tak­en to ad­dress prob­lems with the coun­try’s life­guard ser­vices.

At that time he said: “Ac­tion is be­ing tak­en ad­min­is­tra­tive­ly and plans are afoot to im­prove this ser­vice in the in­ter­est of the beach­go­ers, the cit­i­zens and the vis­i­tors to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”


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