Giv­en a sec­ond lease on life, 11-year-old Tahi­ra Check­ley yes­ter­day re­cit­ed a po­em in ho­n­our of the man who saved her from drown­ing on Au­gust 1.

The child de­scribed in po­et­ry, with a faint voice, Otis Mor­ri­son’s ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice to save her life at his fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Evan­gel­i­cal Fun­da­men­tal Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church in Point Fortin.

Dur­ing her touch­ing recital, Mor­ri­son’s wife Keishal­lene Lewis-Mor­ri­son and daugh­ters Kylie and Kailie were moved to tears.

Mor­ri­son, 36, went to Guapo Beach on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day to spend time with his fam­i­ly be­fore re­turn­ing to work. While at the beach, how­ev­er, he heard Tahi­ra’s cries of dis­tress and went in­to the sea to help her. But af­ter the child was pulled to safe­ty, Mor­ri­son found him­self in dif­fi­cul­ty and drowned.

In her trib­ute to Mor­ri­son yes­ter­day, lit­tle Tahi­ra’s po­em de­scribed the events of that fate­ful day.

“My Hero - I once saw a hero through the light, who pushed the waves aside with all his might. Brave and fear­less he stroked to­wards me, mak­ing sure I was brought to safe­ty. He­roes walk among us but nev­er look for glo­ry or praise. Nei­ther do they seek recog­ni­tion for their thought­ful car­ing ways. A leg­end, A true sol­dier, An­gel on earth, they de­scribed him to be. But in my eyes, he’s my Guardian An­gel al­ways look­ing over me. My hero is just an or­di­nary man, with lim­it­ed time on earth, that was God’s plan. We say a spe­cial thank you for the hero­ism he dis­played. A trib­ute to him I pay. Ask­ing God’s An­gels to es­cort him along his way!”

Mor­ri­son’s sis­ter Nathalie Phillip mean­while praised her broth­er’s hero­ics, as she re­called his pas­sion for au­to me­chan­ics.

“Otis was a gen­tle­man, hard­work­ing, fam­i­ly man, hon­est and a true epit­o­me of a leader. He was qui­et, stuck to his self and worked tire­less­ly to en­sure that his fam­i­ly’s needs were al­ways met. He would work a nor­mal two-week shift … as a me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer and the oth­er two weeks in his garage fix­ing ve­hi­cles.”

For­mer Point Fortin May­or Fran­cis Bertrand said he was at the beach the day of the in­ci­dent “es­pous­ing how safe it is be­cause we don’t have any in­ci­dents on that par­tic­u­lar beach.”

The for­mer may­or said he lat­er found out about the tragedy when he re­turned home.

“I would re­al­ly hope that this op­por­tu­ni­ty, and that the pow­ers that be, will en­sure that they do things to im­prove pub­lic safe­ty at that fa­cil­i­ty,” said Bertrand, in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to Mor­ri­son’s fam­i­ly’s call for life­guards to be sta­tioned at the beach.

He said years ago, he be­gan ef­forts to place life­guards at the Guapo Beach but it was lat­er scrapped.

Pas­tor Collins Howard, who of­fi­ci­at­ed the ser­vice, al­so hoped the tragedy would pro­pel change.

“Point Fortin is al­ways the last to get any­thing. I know you still have a voice, please tell those peo­ple up there to see about the chil­dren down here, their si­lence is deaf­en­ing. We need the peo­ple to be pro­tect­ed.”

Mor­ri­son was laid to rest at the Brighton Cato Ceme­tery at Gon­za­les Vil­lage, Guapo.