The Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) has con­firmed that First Of­fi­cer Chris­ton Bat­ters­by is not paral­ysed, re­fut­ing ear­li­er re­ports.

“Our most re­cent up­date con­firms that our broth­er, First Of­fi­cer Bat­ters­by, is for­tu­nate­ly not paral­ysed as re­port­ed by some me­dia hous­es,” TTAL­PA said in a state­ment on Tues­day.

Bat­ters­by, 27, suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries on March 15 af­ter a div­ing ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go. 

TTAL­PA said it has been in “con­tin­u­ous con­tact with Chris­ton’s fam­i­ly, seek­ing up­dates on his progress and ex­tend­ing the As­so­ci­a­tion’s and its mem­bers’ un­wa­ver­ing sup­port.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to “the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the ded­i­cat­ed med­ical teams work­ing tire­less­ly on Chris­ton’s re­cov­ery, the vig­i­lant beach­go­ers that came to his aid, and the many peo­ple around the world who have joined us in prayer and well-wish­es.”

TTAL­PA said it re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing Bat­ters­by and his fam­i­ly and con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor his re­cov­ery.