A 40-year-old woman drowned while hik­ing near the Madamas Riv­er on Sat­ur­day. She has been iden­ti­fied as Jes­si­ca Jor­dan, of Man­a­ham­bre Road, Ste Madeleine, San Fer­nan­do.

Re­ports in­di­cate that Jor­dan was hik­ing with a group of about ten peo­ple near the Madamas Wa­ter­fall in Bras­so Seco, Paria, when she slipped while walk­ing through knee-high wa­ter.

Her legs re­port­ed­ly be­came trapped be­tween two logs and, de­spite ef­forts to free her, she was sub­merged in ris­ing wa­ter caused to in­ten­si­fy­ing rain­fall, as oth­ers were forced to re­treat to safe­ty.

Res­cue teams, ac­com­pa­nied by po­lice of­fi­cers, hik­ing guides, rel­a­tives and vol­un­teers from the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, trekked for more than two hours to reach Jor­dan’s lo­ca­tion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice said she was dis­cov­ered trapped in a wa­ter-filled hole in chal­leng­ing ter­rain.

Her body was re­cov­ered and iden­ti­fied by rel­a­tives at the scene. Emer­gency per­son­nel then en­dured an ad­di­tion­al eight-hour jour­ney through rugged ter­rain to trans­port her to an area ac­ces­si­ble by ve­hi­cles.

Con­do­lences have been ex­tend­ed to Jor­dan’s fam­i­ly and friends. Au­thor­i­ties con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.