KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“Come al­lyuh! We have to go. All ah we in this to­geth­er.”
This was one of the last pleas LM­CS div­er Christo­pher Boodram made to his col­leagues as he tried to en­cour­age them to climb out of the 30-inch di­am­e­ter Sealine No. 36, which they got sucked in­to dur­ing an ac­ci­dent at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty on Feb­ru­ary 25.
But on­ly Boodram es­caped the trag­ic or­deal at the off­shore fa­cil­i­ty that day.

His col­leagues Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Na­gas­sar died in the pipeline hours lat­er.
The har­row­ing six min­utes and 55 sec­onds of video/au­dio of the men’s last mo­ments were played for those present or who watched the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the LM­CS/Paria div­ing tragedy yes­ter­day.

The record­ing, be­lieved to be Boodram’s last mo­ments with his fall­en col­leagues, was aired pub­licly for the first time.
The moans of Na­gas­sar, as he un­able to speak, in­side the pipeline and Hen­ry try­ing to re­main up­beat de­spite a bro­ken limb, left many at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain with dis­turbed ex­pres­sions on their faces.

It was the first day of the hear­ings, as Paria, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Co and LM­CS at­tor­neys ap­peared at the CoE.
In the days fol­low­ing the re­trieval of divers’ bod­ies at Paria’s off­shore fa­cil­i­ty, the com­pa­ny re­cov­ered a Go­Pro cam­era that Ali Jr wore on his fore­head as he checked on his col­leagues work­ing in­side a habi­tat sub­merged around the ris­er of Sealine 36.

The footage start­ed with Ali Jr float­ing in the wa­ter, when a work­er on a boat hand­ed him a wrench. He swam down to the habit, en­ter­ing it from the bot­tom where Boodram stood around the pipe.
With­in sec­onds, the footage went dark and there is the fright­en­ing sound of a vor­tex. Af­ter some sec­onds, there were dis­tress­ing calls among the divers.

The video end­ed with Na­gas­sar moan­ing.

Paria re­cov­ered the bod­ies of Ali Jr, Kur­ban and Hen­ry on Feb­ru­ary 28 us­ing a wa­ter dis­place­ment method and Na­gas­sar the fol­low­ing day.
Two foren­sic pathol­o­gists, Pro­fes­sor Hu­bert Dais­ley and Dr Parthasarathi Pra­manik, car­ried out au­top­sies on the divers’ bod­ies and pro­vid­ed pos­si­ble times for when they be­lieved each team mem­ber could have last been alive.
Dais­ley re­port­ed that Ali Jr could have last been alive at mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 26, Kur­ban at 6 pm on Feb­ru­ary 26, Hen­ry in the ear­ly hours of Feb­ru­ary 26 and Na­gas­sar at mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 25.

Pra­manik sug­gest­ed that Ali Jr, Kur­ban and Hen­ry were alive up to mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 27
and Na­gas­sar at mid­night on Feb­ru­ary 28

Fol­low­ing is the tran­scrip­tion of the video/au­dio played yes­ter­day:

Div­er 1: We in­side the pipeline. Where al­lyuh
Div­er 1: Chris!
Boodram: Yeah!
Div­er 1: Yuh hear­ing me?

Boodram: I hear­ing al­lyuh!

Div­er 1: I right be­hind al­lyuh! I in­side the pipe.
Boodram: I in­side the pipe too.
Div­er 1: Well, we be­hind you.
Boodram: I try­ing to come up.

Sev­er­al divers called out to Chris, and then there were in­dis­cernible sounds.
Boodram: Eh! I right be­hind you. You right be­hind me?
Na­gas­sar: Groans
Boodram: Who mak­ing all that noise dey?
Boodram: Come al­lyuh, we have to go. All ah we in this to­geth­er. We have to start mov­ing.
Sound of wa­ter and move­ment.
Div­er: Chris
Boodram: Yeah
Div­er: Where you are?
Chris: I don’t know boy. I try­ing to come up.
The voic­es get muf­fled again, but sec­onds lat­er, one div­er says, he was try­ing to climb up the pipe. Na­gas­sar bawls out again.
Boodram: I can’t go more. I am push­ing more oil.
Na­gas­sar moans again as some­one calls out Ali Jr.

A div­er re­sponds, “Yeah Kaz­im here.
Boodram: Yusuf

Hen­ry: Yeah boi.
Boodram: How long un­til you reach Fyzie?
Hen­ry: Right now me and Fyzie com­ing to­geth­er.
Boodram: I am talk­ing about how far from which part you was? You and Fyzie was to­geth­er all this time?
Hen­ry: Right now me and Fyzie to­geth­er
Boodram: Who with you?
Hen­ry: Me and Fyzie alone.
Boodram: Kaz, where you?
Ali Jr: Right here.
Boodram: Right here where?
Ali Jr: That is a stu­pid ques­tion (chuck­les)
Boodram: Kaz, every­thing al­right with you?
Ali Jr: No

Boodram: Muf­fled
Chris Fyz, any­thing hap­pened to you
Kur­ban: No boy.
Chris: Kaz.
Some­one ask Hen­ry if any­thing hap­pened to him and he replied that his foot was bro­ken.
It end­ed with an­oth­er moan from Na­gas­sar.