Leah So­rias

The 13-year-old girl whose kayak col­lid­ed with a 28-foot pirogue at Scot­land Bay, Ch­aguara­mas, on Sun­day, will re­turn to the US with­out her left arm.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, doc­tors tried fever­ish­ly yes­ter­day to re-at­tach the arm of Paige Welch, but could not, as she had al­ready lost too much blood.

The girl and her moth­er, Raquel Welch, who was al­so se­ri­ous­ly in­jured dur­ing the ac­ci­dent, are ward­ed at Med­ical As­so­ciates Hos­pi­tal in St Joseph. Ac­cord­ing to the T&T Coast Guard, they are both Amer­i­can na­tion­als on va­ca­tion in Trinidad with oth­er rel­a­tives. Raquel Welch is said to have had part of her back (close to her spine) ripped off dur­ing the ac­ci­dent, and bones in her left arm were al­so shat­tered.

The moth­er and daugh­ter were on a two-man kayak close to Scot­land Bay around mid­day, when the pirogue, op­er­at­ed by a sol­dier, crashed in­to them. Own­er of the kayak, L Aqui, 23, who was guid­ing the ves­sel, sus­tained a bro­ken an­kle and oth­er mi­nor in­juries. The three were res­cued by the Coast Guard of­fi­cers who were on pa­trol. Aqui was treat­ed and dis­charged from hos­pi­tal on Sun­day. An of­fi­cer at Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion said yes­ter­day that the sol­dier was in­ter­viewed, but was re­leased pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Sources said the sol­dier was sup­posed to have been on sick leave, and could face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

"If he was on sick leave, he was sup­posed to be on a hos­pi­tal bed, in a doc­tor's of­fice or in bed at home," the source said.

Coast Guard Cau­tions

Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Coast Guard, Lt Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste, urged boat han­dlers and op­er­a­tors, yes­ter­day, to be cau­tious when op­er­at­ing their ves­sels. "They need to do so with due care and at­ten­tion, and must put be­fore them their own safe­ty as well as the safe­ty of oth­ers when op­er­at­ing in our wa­ters."

Flash­back

The ac­ci­dent in­volv­ing the Welch­es is some­what sim­i­lar to an one that oc­curred in To­ba­go in June, 2007. Yanik Ques­nel, 17, of Cas­cade in Port-of-Spain, and his girl­friend, Car­oli­no Bar­ry-La­so, 16, of Spain, were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured when they were run over by a pirogue. They were bathing sev­er­al yards from the shore­line at Pi­geon Point at the time. Yanik sus­tained a skull frac­ture, which re­sult­ed in brain in­jury, while Bar­ry-La­so suf­fered a frac­tured skull, a bro­ken arm and leg. Up to Sep­tem­ber, last year, Ques­nel was un­able to walk.