Sascha Wil­son

What was sup­posed to have been a con­tin­u­a­tion of their birth­day cel­e­bra­tion turned in­to a night­mare af­ter 24-year-old Shiv­anie Ramkar­ran drowned at a beach at Guayagua­yare, Ma­yaro East­er Mon­day.

Try­ing to hold back the tears, Ramkar­ran’s boyfriend Jonathan Loutan re­count­ed how they screamed for help and his des­per­ate at­tempt to save her as they drift­ed deep­er in­to the ocean.

The tragedy oc­curred one day af­ter fire of­fi­cer Stephen Mar­cano lost his life while try­ing to save his rel­a­tives from drown­ing at a beach along the same coast­line.

He had tak­en his wife to the beach to cel­e­brate her birth­day on Sun­day. Ramkar­ran and Jonathan both cel­e­brat­ed their birth­day on Sun­day. On East­er Mon­day they went with his rel­a­tives to a beach off Dou­ble Bridge, but some­time af­ter 5 pm tragedy struck.

In an in­ter­view at his Gas­par­il­lo home, 25-year-old Loutan said, “The wa­ter was knee-high and all of a sud­den it start to get rough and the wa­ter just com­ing up and com­ing up and wave just com­ing over and over and the sand had holes in the floor. Each time I hop my way to the top of the bank is be­cause a wave knock­ing you and you go­ing back down in the hole. She was scream­ing. She was bawl­ing for help. I was bawl­ing for help. She was re­al pan­ick­ing. I try to help she. I try push­ing, but each time I push she is like I go­ing in­to the wa­ter back, but I still push­ing I push­ing. Each time I raise up my hand is like I go­ing down in the wa­ter be­cause I have to keep com­ing back up.”

He said his cousin and friend were al­so in dif­fi­cul­ties, but they made it back to shore safe­ly.

Ricky Ramkarran and his wife Camille, whose daughter Shivanie Ramkarran drowned at Mayaro beach on Monday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Loutan said they had drift­ed so far out to sea that every­one on­shore looked like ants. “A next wave come and when I come back up is be­cause she was pan­ick­ing so much she was go­ing to­wards the wave I had to turn she around.”

Re­call­ing her last words, Loutan said, “I could hear she bawl­ing babe. She said babe a few times and I kept telling she pad­dle, pad­dle, push, push and I was push­ing she too. I could hear she cough­ing. I could hear you know when the wa­ter go down your throat, I was hear­ing all of that when she start to cough it out.”

Even­tu­al­ly, his fa­ther Joash Loutan re­alised that they were in trou­ble and went to help them. He pulled Jonathan to the back of him.

“Shiv­anie was about ten feet away from we. She was float­ing up­side down. I went and get she. I turn she over and try and get some wa­ter out she mouth.”

When he got her to shore, he said a beach­go­er tried to re­sus­ci­tate her while they called the am­bu­lance.

They even­tu­al­ly took her to the Ma­yaro Dis­trict Health Hos­pi­tal where at­tempts to re­sus­ci­tate her were un­suc­cess­ful. Up­set that the am­bu­lance nev­er came, he said, “Ten, 15 peo­ple call the am­bu­lance, the am­bu­lance nev­er reach when we car­ry she to the cen­tre is two brand new am­bu­lance park up in the com­pound and no one there to dri­ve it…That is very poor, that is very bad.”

Loutan, 25, a me­chan­ic, said he has al­ready built his house and he had planned to mar­ry Ram­bar­ran and start a fam­i­ly with her.

Ram­bar­ran, the first of her par­ents’ two chil­dren, was sup­posed to have grad­u­at­ed next month from Cost­tatt with a busi­ness man­age­ment de­gree. De­scribed as a fun, lov­ing and obe­di­ent young woman, her moth­er Camille Ram­bar­ran told re­porters at their Bar­rack­pore home that her daugh­ter could not swim but she loved the beach. She did not hear about the oth­er drown­ing on Sun­day, but the moth­er said she was com­fort­able with her go­ing to the beach with her boyfriend.

An emotional Jonathon Loutan, right, recalls the ordeal when his girlfriend Shivanie Ramkarran drowned at Mayaro beach on Monday during an interview at his Gasparillo home yesterday. Also in the picture is his father, Joash Loutan.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“She does nev­er go far and she was with her boyfriend. He al­ways have Shiv­anie safe. She nev­er went any­where with him and it was not safe. He al­ways took good care of she like if she was a child to him al­so.” Ex­press­ing sad­ness over the death of Ram­bar­ran and Mar­cano, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said life­guards were on du­ty through­out the week­end, but the drown­ings took place where no life­guards were sta­tioned.

“While it is im­pos­si­ble to pa­trol the en­tire 17 miles of beach­es, I have made re­peat­ed re­quests to the Gov­ern­ment to des­ig­nate safe bathing zones along the Ma­yaro-Man­zanil­la stretch. These zones should com­prise of life­guards, medics, park­ing fa­cil­i­ties, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, wash­rooms, con­ces­sion­aires and shore­line main­te­nance.”

He said Mar­cano de­served posthu­mous praise and ac­knowl­edge­ment from the na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties for his hero­ic ac­tions.