The Quamina family, of Princes Town, lives by the mantra "no one shall be left behind." "We always moved as a family, wherever we were going. We were always together. We never left anybody behind," daughter Jamie Lee Belgrave said. Last Sunday, however, not by choice, but by circumstance, the family had to leave their loved one, Nicholas Simmons, behind in Dhein's Bay, Chaguaramas, where he disappeared after a pirogue overturned on its way to the Red Bull Flugtag event at Williams Bay. Yesterday, the search continued for the Form One student of Cowen Hamilton Secondary School, even as the body of another victim of Sunday's fiasco, Dimitri John, was recovered. However, in addition to dealing with the loss of Nicholas, the family now has to contend with people who have blamed them for going on board the pirogue which had no lifejackets or the capacity to hold so many people at one time.
Belgrave, one of the survivors of Sunday's tragic boating incident, has come out in defence of her family. She said: "I know people are blaming my mother but I had my three-year-old son, Ty, with me and the boatman allowed him on board. "If he owned a boat for ten years, don't you think he would have had an idea of the capacity he could accommodate. Wouldn't he have had a better knowledge of how much people he could take?" she asked.
Belgrave said at the time they were keen to go on the boat and get to the event to enjoy themselves. She said no one was thinking, at that point, that the unthinkable could have happened. The bereaved sister gave a gripping account of the circumstances leading to his death. Belgrave, 25, of Craignish Village, Princes Town, said they all thought they were going to die when the fishing vessel, carrying them to the inaugural Flugtag event, started to take water and finally sunk. She said: "We wanted to go to the Flugtag event - my husband, Kahlil, our son, Ty, my brother, Nicholas, my parents, Lenny and Denise Quamina, and two girlfriends. "We had no intention of taking a boat to the venue but the traffic gridlock, caused by the event, forced us to do so." Belgrave said they left home around 8 am that day but when they passed the Westmoorings traffic light, they knew it was an exercise in futility and decided to park the two vehicles under the almond tree and walk to Williams Bay.
She said they took out what they needed, placed Ty in his baby stroller, and started strolling to their destination. Belgrave recalled that close to 2 pm, when they got to a shop in Caranage, a man was shouting: "$20 to reach, $20 a head to go down." She said they had no intention of taking a boat but realising if they continued walking they would miss everything decided to take up the offer when they were approached. She said they had to walk a short distance over some rocky terrain to get to the vessel, which already had eight other people on board. She said they found a space between the other passengers and got ready for take off. She sat near to the captain, known only as Richard, while her husband and son sat on the front of the boat. Her mother and brother sat on a bench, she said. She recalled that as the boat was pulling off, her girlfriend who was behind her, asked about the lifejackets and the captain's response was that the last set of people who got off the boat left with them. Belgrave said she started a conversation with the captain, asking for his number, so they could call him on their return trip. Shortly after, she recalled "he made a semi-circle in the water, reached halfway in the ocean and stopped.
She added: "I asked him what was happening because it was the first time I was in a boat this low. While he was driving the boat, the water was wetting my bottom. "He took up a plastic bottle and started dipping water out of the boat. He said to tell a guy who was close to us to get up and go to the bow. I did that. "Both of us were alone by the engine, I asked him quietly if we were going down. He just shook his head and told me to go by the bow but by this time the water was half-way up to my knee." Belgrave said at that point panic gripped all of the passengers as she told them they were going down. As the boat started to sink, she said, "everybody began bawling and screaming." She said there were three lifejackets and as she reached for one, a girl grabbed it from her.
She added: "My husband swam across to me with my son and tried to hold on to me but a girl held on to me, pulling me down. "She knocked off my husband's glasses as he tried to grab me. When my husband realised I was going down, he had to let me go, because he could not save both me and my son. "I went straight down in the water and came back up. The first person my eye came upon when I surfaced was Nicholas. "He was on top of the bow which was doing down. It was about 24 inches from water level. A guy came up to him and tried to get him to let go. "The guy later told me that he held his hand and tried to pull him up but he was frightened because he could not swim." Belgrave, who is able to swim, said she held her breath and started floating. Two pirogues came to their rescue. she said. "I was the last person they took out of the water because they thought I was dead," she recalled.
