Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie died from mul­ti­ple trau­mat­ic in­juries, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the head, af­ter a jet ski op­er­a­tor ran in­to her fam­i­ly at Pi­geon Point beach in To­ba­go last week.

This was re­vealed by a foren­sic au­top­sy at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, five days af­ter the trag­ic ac­ci­dent.

Her fa­ther Arnold Jo­gie, who was al­so hit in the crash, yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia he is still suf­fer­ing from im­mense pain to his back and chest. His wife Sal­isha Jo­gie and broth­er Dar­ren were al­so hit by the jet ski, which breached the zone des­ig­nat­ed for bathing on­ly.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Arnold Jo­gie said de­spite their grief, his fam­i­ly is feel­ing the warmth of the na­tion.

“I am grate­ful and thank­ful for all the prayers and sup­port every­body giv­ing me. It keep­ing us a lit­tle more stronger,” he said.

Jo­gie called for an im­me­di­ate change in pro­to­cols for jet-ski op­er­a­tions na­tion­wide so no one can suf­fer a sim­i­lar loss.

“Let we get rid of it from all bathing ar­eas - pop­u­lar bathing ar­eas,” he said.

How­ev­er, he does not agree with an out­right ban as is be­ing con­sid­ered by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

“I wouldn’t say put a ban to jet skis but let us put a des­ig­nat­ed area for the jet skis. Who like the jet skis and want to use the jet skis, go to that area.”

Jo­gie said his daugh­ter’s body will soon be em­balmed to be re­turned to Trinidad. He re­it­er­at­ed that he would not be leav­ing with­out his daugh­ter’s body.

The trau­mat­ic in­ci­dent has trig­gered na­tion­al out­rage and re­newed con­ver­sa­tions about ma­rine safe­ty.

A 32-year-old male sus­pect from Canaan re­mains in po­lice cus­tody.

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk said yes­ter­day that po­lice are still in­ter­view­ing wit­ness­es and do­ing their due dili­gence be­fore ap­proach­ing the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

“This is a com­plex in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” he said

Vis­i­tor ‘shocked’ as jet ski ‘mad­ness’ con­tin­ues

In a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, the Di­vi­sion of En­vi­ron­ment said jet skis are pro­hib­it­ed from the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park and Buc­coo beach.

How­ev­er, a Ger­man tourist told Guardian Me­dia she was at Pi­geon Point that same day and saw two jet skis whizzing across the wa­ter while she was bathing.

“Well, I was shocked and couldn’t be­lieve my eyes...I looked at the peo­ple who were in that area where the ac­ci­dent hap­pened but they stayed where they were. I thought they might have been leav­ing this area,” she said.

She said Pi­geon Point is a must-vis­it when­ev­er she is in To­ba­go, but in­stead of a re­lax­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, she said anx­i­ety has tak­en over.

“I al­ways felt safe with­in the rope but now I con­stant­ly look around while swim­ming.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to En­vi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Dar­ren Hen­ry to find out if his di­vi­sion had grant­ed per­mis­sion for jet skis to tra­verse through the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park but he did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages up to pub­li­ca­tion.

Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park man­age­ment al­so did not re­spond when ques­tioned about the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, as an of­fi­cial said man­age­ment was not in of­fice.

Mean­while, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald Mac Lean said polic­ing of the ma­rine park is re­quired. He ex­pressed dis­may that the space has been de­void of ma­rine pa­trols for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two years.

“We have to have it or we not gonna fix it, and this has been dis­cussed at length with the THA. I don’t know why we keep stalling on get­ting the ma­rine po­lice back in op­er­a­tion which would work with the Coast Guard. I have not seen it in ages. I have not seen it in the last cou­ple years. We have to bring sense back to this mad­ness.”

Ma­rine Park bill lin­ger­ing since 2020

To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son said yes­ter­day that he is ea­ger­ly await­ing the de­bate on the Buc­coo Ma­rine Park bill in Par­lia­ment. The bill was sent by the THA to Par­lia­ment since No­vem­ber 2020. Au­gus­tine and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­cussed bring­ing it to Par­lia­ment at a March 27 meet­ing.

Yes­ter­day, Samp­son said, “I think it is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant be­cause if we al­low things to go as they are, we would con­tin­ue to al­low any­thing to hap­pen. We have to have laws; we have to abide by rules as it con­cerns the ma­rine park.

“If we don’t put any­thing in place, per­sons would con­tin­ue to com­mit the acts and do as they please be­cause they be­lieve the ma­rine park be­longs to them.”

He said strict leg­is­la­tion would change the be­hav­iour of ser­vice providers and en­sure they op­er­ate in the spaces they are sup­posed to.

Adding his voice, Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea gen­er­al sec­re­tary Gary Aboud said the laws must be up­dat­ed to re­flect the grave safe­ty con­cerns.

“Look at Scot­land Bay, pirogue own­ers dri­ving like lu­natics. Where are the reg­u­la­tions? Who are to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble and in­no­cent? Any­body could dri­ve any ves­sel, at any speed, any­where, any­how. There must be law and or­der.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to an of­fi­cial at Wa­ter­holics, which pro­vides a num­ber of wa­ter­sports ser­vices, in­clud­ing jet skis, kayaks, pad­dle boards and char­tered tours. An of­fi­cial ex­plained that it op­er­ates ex­clu­sive­ly to the east of Pi­geon Point and does not cross the buoy de­mark­ing the start of the ma­rine park. He said there are oth­er op­er­a­tors around the is­land that some­times pass through the park to get to a des­ti­na­tion.

The Jet Ski As­so­ci­a­tion was ex­pect­ed to have a meet­ing in Calder Hall yes­ter­day to dis­cuss con­cerns sur­round­ing the in­dus­try.