Valdeen Shears-Nep­tune

Coast Guard divers, po­lice and Air Guard of­fi­cers mount­ed a land, sea and air search in the chop­py wa­ters of the At­lantic Ocean yes­ter­day, af­ter four peo­ple, in­clud­ing a nine-year-old child and a teenag­er, drowned in two sep­a­rate in­ci­dents at Ma­yaro and Man­zanil­la.

The bod­ies of pen­sion­er Mor­ris Sam­my and his grand­daugh­ter An­na Ali were re­cov­ered, but up to press time there was no sign of De­o­raj Har­ri­dass, 49, and his 13-year-old step-daugh­ter Rane­sha Bas­deo.

The first drown­ings oc­curred at the Or­toire Riv­er, off the Man­zanil­la Road, around 7.30 am, when Bas­deo went to wash her hands near the mouth of the riv­er. Po­lice said the child did not re­alise there was a 12-feet drop near the riv­er bank and she slipped in. Bas­deo, an es­tate con­sta­ble with Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices, dived in to save her but was pulled in by the strong un­der­cur­rents. While the fam­i­ly hur­ried­ly called for help, the man and his step-daugh­ter were washed fur­ther out to sea.

They both were res­i­dents of Robert Street, Table­land. Bas­deo at­tend­ed the Table­land High School and was prepar­ing to en­ter Form Two in Sep­tem­ber.

The fam­i­ly had gone on a camp­ing trip for the week­end. Rel­a­tives milled around the area where the fam­i­ly had spent the night un­der a white tent and mat­tress­es, but re­fused to speak with the me­dia yes­ter­day.

One woman sat on the mat­tress hold­ing her head, eyes red-rimmed. She po­lite­ly told the T&T Guardian that the fam­i­ly had gone to the near­by Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion.

Sev­er­al of Har­ri­dass' friends and co-work­ers, dressed in their se­cu­ri­ty uni­forms, had gath­ered at the beach, up­on hear­ing the news. One man, who wished not to be named, said the teen ob­vi­ous­ly had no knowl­edge of the drop in the ocean.

"Is about 12 to 15 feet right out there, you see where the wa­ter look­ing calm and it dark, right there she was. She must be just feel her legs give out and pan­icked. Know­ing him, he would have tried to save her," the man said.

An­oth­er co-work­er said they shared their col­league's grief be­cause they had worked to­geth­er for over 23 years.

Both men lament­ed the lack of life­guards, as well as vis­i­ble dan­ger signs along the shore. The area, they said, is a pop­u­lar fish­ing and fam­i­ly lim­ing spot.

Near­by, how­ev­er, oth­er bathers sat undis­turbed, un­der beach um­brel­las, with chil­dren run­ning along the shore. One fam­i­ly from Gas­par­il­lo sat on rocks mere me­tres away from where Har­ri­das and Bas­deo lost their lives. They were un­aware of the drown­ings and were in fact tak­ing pic­tures, near sim­i­lar­ly dan­ger­ous wa­ters. They im­me­di­ate­ly left up­on hear­ing of the tragedy.

Fur­ther along the vil­lage, a fish­er­man not­ed that the bod­ies would have been pulled out by cur­rents in the ear­ly morn­ing high tides and would come back in with the evening tide. Search par­ties were sent out to re­trieve the bod­ies along the south east­ern shore.

Rough wa­ters too much

Mean­while, at the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, Coast Guard divers and per­son­nel had gath­ered af­ter news of a sec­ond dou­ble drown­ing sev­er­al vil­lages away, near a line of pri­vate beach hous­es.The trio, from the Clax­ton Bay area, had been pulled out by strong cur­rents along the shore near Ma­yaro Beach hous­es at Co­conut Grove Pri­vate Road, Ma­yaro.

Robert Sam­my looked on sad­ly as staff of the Boodoo Fu­ner­al Home re­moved the body of his fa­ther, a pen­sion­er, who had drowned while try­ing to save his nine-year old grand­daugh­ter and her friend, Al­isa Ra­moutar, 10. By the time he had got to the site, his niece had al­ready suc­cumbed to her in­juries.

Rel­a­tives said the am­bu­lances came on the scene half an hour af­ter a friend of the fam­i­ly, who had tried CPR on the child, de­cid­ed to rush her to hos­pi­tal. How­ev­er, she died on the way.

A com­posed Sam­my said his 74-year-old fa­ther was a good swim­mer, but had prob­a­bly suf­fered cramps and was un­able to make it out the chop­py wa­ters.Ra­moutar, a swim­mer with Ea­gles Swim­ming Club, was able to swim ashore and alert oth­er rel­a­tives.

Her broth­ers, 16-year-old Jor­dan and Aaron, 14, along with their friend, Jonathan Casey, 13, had all at­tempt­ed to save Sam­my and Ali. The young men, up­on see­ing their dis­traught sis­ter run­ning in­to the house, did not hes­i­tate to dive in­to the wa­ters in their at­tempt to save Sam­my and Ali. The three sib­lings are com­pet­i­tive swim­mers.

"We re­al­ly tried. But Al­isa said she tried to hold on to An­na and she just slipped away.He (Sam­my), she said, tried to hold on­to two of them, and then he dis­ap­peared. She pushed and swam back in and came run­ning, cry­ing in­to the house," ex­plained the el­dest of the three res­cuers.

They were able to pull An­na's body back to shore, but she was un­con­scious by then, said the younger sib­ling.Sam­my, in the mean­time, said he was grate­ful to Ra­moutar for even try­ing to save the lives of her child­hood friend and his fa­ther.

Ma­yaro po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.