Kevon Felmine

Fam­i­ly man Phillip Bab­wah sac­ri­ficed his life as he dived in­to the rough Mara­cas Bay wa­ters when he heard his daugh­ter-in-law Wendy Jairam scream for help and saw his 25-year-old son Ron­nie strug­gling to stay afloat.How­ev­er, the hero­ic at­tempt by Bab­wah, the fa­ther of two, led to his own death, as he drowned af­ter strong cur­rents pulled him un­der­wa­ter on Mon­day.

His fam­i­ly was among scores who took ad­van­tage of the pub­lic hol­i­day for a beach out­ing. The Clax­ton Bay fam­i­ly had planned a day of sea, sand and bake and shark. Now Bab­wah's wid­ow, Naranganie, vows nev­er to take her fam­i­ly back to the beach.Bab­wah, a su­per­vi­sor at Unit­ed En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Ltd, Point Lisas, died be­fore reach­ing the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal."I wasn't even sure I was go­ing to make it," Jairam said as she fought back her tears at the fam­i­ly's School Trace home yes­ter­day.

The Bab­wahs would have cel­e­brat­ed the 25th an­niver­sary of their mar­riage this Oc­to­ber and Phillip would have turned 50 on Ju­ly 25. Now all Naranganie has are mem­o­ries."He was a lov­ing fa­ther, hus­band, broth­er. He was every­thing to every­body. I will re­mem­ber him spend­ing all his time with me go­ing to the gar­den, do­ing the house­work, do­ing every­thing to­geth­er," Naranganie said.Bab­wah's moth­er, Vi­o­let, said she was still in shock, as she saw her son leave home a healthy and hap­py man.

"I nev­er ex­pect­ed my child to go. I can­not come to ac­cept it, be­cause he left here as a healthy per­son. He stood right here and said, 'Grams, I am go­ing, eh.' I said, "'Ok, safe ride,' and they went," she said.

Fate­ful morn­ing at Mara­cas

Naranganie said the fam­i­ly reached Mara­cas Bay around 8.30 am and af­ter tak­ing a short dip, they de­cid­ed to re­turn to shore be­cause the wa­ter was cold and rough."All four of us went in the wa­ter to bathe and I told my hus­band I was feel­ing cold, so I came back out."When I looked back at Ron­nie and Wendy to tell them to come out, I saw they were go­ing fur­ther. I told Phillip to call them, don't let them go in fur­ther.

"The cur­rent was pulling them and when the wave pushed them in, they kept go­ing un­der."Af­ter the fam­i­ly called out for help, she said, two surfers went in­to the wa­ter with their boards and Bab­wah fol­lowed. But by the time these good samar­i­tans res­cued Ron­nie and Wendy, by putting them on the boards, her hus­band had al­ready gone un­der­wa­ter.Naranganie said, "I ran to get to the life­guards but I could not see any. I went to look at an­oth­er sta­tion and by the time they brought my hus­band out I saw that a life­guard came.

"The life­guard helped us a lot, but when they came, Phillip was al­ready out of the wa­ter and I gave him CPR. There were two doc­tors on the beach. They helped a lot un­til the am­bu­lance came and took him to the hos­pi­tal."She said it was the first time in four years the fam­i­ly had gone to the beach. Her hus­band was an av­er­age swim­mer."My son told me, 'Ma, let us go to the beach. Let us go and take a lit­tle dip, and come back be­fore 2 pm.'

"He had to go to work for 3 pm at Petrotrin. We cut up sweet­bread, I took some soft drinks and wa­ter and I said we will buy bake and shark," she said.