Af­ter years of leisure seek­ers sneak­ing in­to the old Wind­sor Park quar­ry to swim in its pond, the pic­turesque area turned night­mar­ish on Sun­day when 31-year-old Max Phillip drowned.

At 6 am yes­ter­day, Coast Guard divers fi­nal­ly re­trieved Phillip’s body from the rain-filled pond formed af­ter a con­trac­tor ex­tract­ed red sand. Vil­lagers said there are reg­u­lar pa­trols by se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, but peo­ple risk go­ing to the pond to lime.

Un­der­tak­ers took his body to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s mor­tu­ary for an au­top­sy. Cou­va po­lice re­spond­ed, and so far, of­fi­cers do not sus­pect any foul play.

Po­lice said that Phillip, of Beau­car­ro Vil­lage, and oth­ers were hik­ing through the area of the quar­ry. He en­tered the pond and be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties stay­ing afloat. Oth­ers around the pond tried to save him, but he even­tu­al­ly drowned.

At their home yes­ter­day, Phillip’s moth­er Eliz­a­beth Franklin said she last spoke to him on Sun­day morn­ing as she pre­pared for church.

He com­pli­ment­ed her on her style. When she re­turned home, her daugh­ter told her Phillip went to Ch­agua­nas. He went with a friend and was to re­turn soon.

“I said, OK! I cooked and cov­ered down his food for him. Then I got the news that he died,” Franklin said. 

She said Phillip was a good swim­mer, but his friends said he might have got­ten cramps while in the wa­ter. Franklin was born and raised in Wind­sor and the sand­pits ex­ist­ed dur­ing her child­hood. How­ev­er, she could not re­mem­ber any­one drown­ing. There was a pond back then, but it was not as deep.

She said it was years since Phillip went in­to their old com­mu­ni­ty and could not say why he went. Phillip had a wife who lives abroad. 

Wind­sor Park res­i­dents said Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tor’s Ltd (JS­CL) op­er­at­ed the quar­ry but closed it ap­prox­i­mate­ly three years ago. A vil­lager said the area is re­strict­ed, and the com­pa­ny’s se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers usu­al­ly chase peo­ple away. How­ev­er, she said, out­siders of­ten vis­it the pond for a lime.

“It is over 15 years that I am liv­ing here, but I nev­er took my chil­dren there be­cause it is dan­ger­ous. It is just a big hole filled with wa­ter and slush. Yes­ter­day, there were around 30 peo­ple down there. There were two car­loads of peo­ple that came with the guy that drowned. One of the guys was try­ing to save him in the wa­ter, but he (Phillip) was pulling him down, so he had to let go.”

Peo­ple can al­so en­ter the quar­ry from Bas­ta Hall, Cou­va, hik­ing through a few hun­dred me­tres of bush­es. Res­i­dents there said it was not the first time some­one got in trou­ble while bathing in the pond.

Ef­forts to get a com­ment from JS­CL were un­suc­cess­ful.