An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Sea Lots cel­e­brat­ed long in­to the night yes­ter­day, af­ter two of their own were pre­sent­ed with na­tion­al awards for gal­lantry for res­cu­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer from a burn­ing car last Sep­tem­ber.

Cheers rang out and big smiles were ex­changed as Ter­rance David, 45, and De­shawn Hamil­ton, 29, col­lect­ed their award from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, last evening.

The two re­ceived the Hum­ming­bird Medal Bronze for their hero­ic act on Sep­tem­ber 5, 2024, where they pulled the vic­tim from his car af­ter it burst in­to flames along Pro­duc­tion Av­enue, Sea Lots.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 6 am, af­ter the car crashed in­to a util­i­ty pole, flipped and the en­gine be­gan smok­ing.

On their way to work, the two did not hes­i­tate to jump in­to ac­tion af­ter their calls for help at the near­by po­lice im­pound lot went unan­swered and re­spond­ing of­fi­cers seemed hes­i­tant to get near the burn­ing ve­hi­cle. They even­tu­al­ly dragged the vic­tim to safe­ty from the fiery wreck­age as they wait­ed on med­ical pro­fes­sion­als to ar­rive.

The men yes­ter­day urged per­sons to “just help each oth­er.”

Say­ing he felt “good and glad to be recog­nised at the same time,” Hamil­ton still seemed stunned.

“It hap­pened, they recog­nised we and is sur­prise still. We didn’t know we were go­ing to get a na­tion­al award at the same time.”

The hum­ble young men thanked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the awards com­mit­tee for se­lect­ing them for this life-chang­ing achieve­ment.

They are both hop­ing this will be the start of turn­ing around the neg­a­tive stig­ma usu­al­ly as­cribed to Sea Lots.

David said, “It is a good ex­am­ple for the youths al­so. We didn’t know we were go­ing to get it and at least we are be­ing recog­nised for the good­ness and kind­ness from our heart, and I hope it can spread around the na­tion and every­body move the same way.”

He urged per­sons to con­sid­er how things can change in a split sec­ond.

“You can leave home and see some­body in dan­ger, and leave them, but you have kids al­so, chil­dren go­ing to work, you have fam­i­ly out there and the way how life is, it too short for we to stereo­type some­body and judge them from the out­side so this is a good ex­am­ple for peo­ple to just help each oth­er.”

Re­call­ing that they had both put their lives in dan­ger, David added, “It coul­da been me, it coul­da be my moth­er, it coul­da be your cousin, it coul­da be any­body.”

Point­ing to the cur­rent state of the coun­try, he said, “Look at what go­ing on on the na­tion’s roads. At the end of the day, it is good to put a help­ing hand and I just want the youths them to know you not too young, you not too big, you not too rank­ing to at least help some­body nah. That is the on­ly way you could bring back love in the coun­try.”

He added, “Peo­ple have it that when they reach the lights, is to mash gas, doh stop. Sea Lots is this type of way, Sea Lots is that type of way, but you doh know what could end up on your doorstep. You don’t know where you could end up and is the same set­ta peo­ple have to help you and have to bring you out the gut­ter.”

The men’s fam­i­lies were ex­cit­ed last night and beamed with pride as they stood proud­ly in their suits, which were spon­sored by the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EPoS). Al­though they are cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed, the men said EPOS had at least en­sured they were ready to take on the world last night.