RALPH BAN­WARIE

The body of the miss­ing man from Mal­abar, Ari­ma who drowned on Thurs­day at Pen­zante Bay, Ba­lan­dra has been found.

Lo­cal divers from Ba­lan­dra re­trieved the body of An­drew Cur­tis Clarke, 35, around 8:15 am this morn­ing close to where he dis­ap­peared un­der the wa­ter while at­tempt­ing to re­cov­er a foot­ball.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer viewed the body and made a pro­nounce­ment and or­dered its re­moval to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal pend­ing post­mortem.

Divers from the TT Coast Guard, Air Sup­port Unit and oth­er agen­cies ar­rived in Ba­lan­dra to join in the search but on ar­rival the body of Clarke was al­ready re­moved and placed on the shore.

Clarke along with friends went to Pen­zante Bay on Thurs­day to spend the day.

Around 2:40 pm, they were en­gaged in a foot­ball game on the shore when the foot­ball was kicked in­to the wa­ter. Clarke de­cid­ed to go af­ter the ball de­spite his friends ap­peal­ing for him not to ven­ture in­to the chop­py wa­ter.