An eight-year-old girl who was re­port­ed­ly pushed in­to a riv­er in Gon­za­les by an­oth­er child and washed in­to an un­der­ground drain dur­ing in­tense rain­fall yes­ter­day was lat­er res­cued from the East Dry Riv­er (EDR) in Port-of-Spain by po­lice of­fi­cers who risked their own lives to save her.

Rush­ing to ren­der as­sis­tance min­utes af­ter they were in­formed about the in­ci­dent around 3.45 pm, PC’s Tay­lor and Nep­tune of the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF) sprang in­to ac­tion and were as­sist­ed by a civil­ian.

The of­fi­cers had been on mo­bile pa­trol along Pic­cadil­ly Street, Port-of-Spain, when they were alert­ed by Dil­lion Ram­sey of Quar­ry Street as to what had hap­pened.

Spot­ting the girl who lives at Ward Lane, Gon­za­les, in the riv­er, PC Tay­lor jumped in and se­cured the child, even en­coun­ter­ing dif­fi­cul­ty him­self and al­most drown­ing in the res­cue at­tempt.

As­sist­ed by both Nep­tune and Ram­sey, who rushed to the bridge near the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, they were able to pull both from the wa­ter safe­ly.

The child and PC Tay­lor were tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion, where of­fi­cers learned from the girl that she had been play­ing with a group of oth­er chil­dren when an old­er boy re­port­ed­ly pushed her in­to the swollen wa­ter­course.

She was then swept away by the fast-flow­ing wa­ter in­to the un­der­ground drains, which emp­ties in­to the East Dry Riv­er, and was lat­er spot­ted in the vicin­i­ty of Pic­cadil­ly, South Port-of-Spain, which was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.09km away from where she went in.

Po­lice of­fi­cers con­tact­ed the child’s moth­er and lat­er took both of them to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where the girl was treat­ed for mi­nor in­juries, while PC Tay­lor was treat­ed for an in­jury to his right arm.

But even as law en­force­ment of­fi­cials and the pub­lic cel­e­brat­ed the girl’s mirac­u­lous and safe res­cue, fire of­fi­cers con­tin­ued to search the riv­er at Sea Lots for an adult male and an adult fe­male, who were al­so sus­pect­ed to have been washed away.

Res­i­dents of Sea Lots as­sist­ed the of­fi­cers by ven­tur­ing out in­to the man­grove, search­ing for any signs of life, but po­lice said noth­ing had been found up to 6 pm.