Fran­cis Joseph

Two stu­dents who es­caped death in a boat ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go, two years ago were in court yes­ter­day, seek­ing, among oth­er things, re­cov­ery of their med­ical bills which have so far crossed the $6 mil­lion mark. Ana Car­oli­na Bar­ry-La­so, of Pon­teve­dra, Spain, and Yanik Ques­nel, of Kens­ing­ton Court, Cas­cade, have sued the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park Ltd and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, seek­ing dam­ages for per­son­al in­juries and con­se­quen­tial loss for neg­li­gence, while they were us­ing the beach fa­cil­i­ties at Pi­geon Point on June 12, 2007. Ques­nel is paral­ysed from the neck down, while La­so's en­tire left side is paral­ysed.

The civ­il tri­al start­ed yes­ter­day be­fore Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones in the Port-of-Spain High Court. The two stu­dents are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Ker­wyn Gar­cia. El­ton Prescott, SC, Phillip La­m­ont and Alvin Pas­call ap­pear for the THA and Pi­geon Point Ltd. Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, state at­tor­neys Sar­fraz Al­gar­an, Mi­ra Goolam, Deb­o­rah Jean-Bap­tiste-Samuel and Sean Julien rep­re­sent the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Hear­ing con­tin­ues this morn­ing. Ques­nel, who will turn 20 next week, could not go in­to the wit­ness box be­cause he is con­fined to a wheel­chair. He gave his ev­i­dence from the front of the Bar ta­ble. In his state­ment, which was ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence, Ques­nel said he met La­so while they were study­ing in Cos­ta Ri­ca. He in­vit­ed her to Trinidad to spend the sum­mer va­ca­tion in 2007. They ar­rived in Trinidad on May 31, 2007.

Ques­nel said on the morn­ing of June 12, 2007, his fa­ther Bernard drove them to the fort at Scar­bor­ough, and then to Mount Irvine. They end­ed up in Pi­geon Point at 4.15 pm. He said af­ter surf­ing for a while, he and La­so went to­wards the shore­line. "We en­tered the wa­ter which was shal­low at first, but sud­den­ly, it got deep­er to the height of my chest...I am six feet, two inch­es," he said. "The next thing I re­mem­ber is see­ing a boat al­most on top of us. I do not re­mem­ber hear­ing the sound of an en­gine at all be­fore I saw the boat. By the time I saw the boat, there was no time to get out of the way. "Af­ter this, the next thing I re­mem­ber was wak­ing up at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and see­ing peo­ple around me. I have sus­tained very se­ri­ous in­juries as a re­sult of the boat col­lid­ing with me."

In court yes­ter­day, Ques­nel said this trip was his sec­ond to Pi­geon Point. The first, he said, was about sev­en years be­fore. Ques­nel list­ed his med­ical bills so far as $3,025,303.58. He has re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion in Trinidad, Mi­a­mi and Spain. Among his in­juries list­ed were trau­mat­ic head in­jury, quadra­pare­sis, a frac­tured pelvis, lam­i­nar frac­ture, a right ac­etab­u­lar frac­ture, and paral­y­sis from the neck down. La­so's med­ical bills, so far, have reached �286,583.13 ($3.07 mil­lion). La­so, 19, has re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion in Trinidad, Mi­a­mi and Spain. Among her in­juries list­ed were se­vere com­pressed cra­nial frac­ture, punc­ture of the brain mem­brane, paral­y­sis of the en­tire left side, nerve dam­age to the up­per right arm and left shoul­der, and three bro­ken toes.