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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Paria seeks to retrieve hyperbaric chamber from seabed

by

Kevon Felmine
977 days ago
20221124

KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

One day af­ter Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) mem­bers vis­it­ed Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny for a first-hand view of the sites which were in­volved fol­low­ing the deaths of four LM­CS divers in Feb­ru­ary, Paria Fu­el is plan­ning to re­trieve a cru­cial piece of ev­i­dence from the seafloor.

Paria at­tor­ney Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC said yes­ter­day that Paria Fu­el will try to sal­vage LM­CS’s hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber (habi­tat) from the seabed.

The habi­tat was where divers Christo­pher Boodram, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Na­gas­sar worked on Feb­ru­ary 25 when a Delta P in­ci­dent sucked them in­to Sealine 36 at Paria’s Berth 6 in the Pointe-a-Pierre har­bour.

Boodram sur­vived af­ter crawl­ing and swim­ming out of the 30-inch di­am­e­ter pipeline and was res­cued by Ronald Ra­moutar and Corey Craw­ford.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent and re­trieval of the divers’ bod­ies, LM­CS tried to re­move the habi­tat on March 22. How­ev­er, the cham­ber fell to the sea floor dur­ing that process.

Pe­ter­son said Paria was seek­ing per­mis­sion to bring the habi­tat to the sur­face so the CoE can in­spect it. The cham­ber is al­so rest­ing on Sealine 36 and Paria wants it re­moved, he point­ed out.

How­ev­er, Pe­ter­son said Paria Fu­el did not want to re­move it un­til the CoE had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the scene and then grant leave for the com­pa­ny to bring it up.

“Of course, it will re­quire LM­CS con­sent be­cause it is their as­set. But in the event that they may not be in­clined to ex­pend the re­sources to bring it up, Paria is pre­pared to do it and make it avail­able to the com­mis­sion for view­ing and af­ter, to be hand­ed back to LM­CS as the case may be. But it is not de­sir­able to have it sit where it is now.”

CoE chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC, said it was an em­i­nent and sen­si­ble idea he would en­cour­age. While it is not in his au­thor­i­ty, he said it seemed wise as he want­ed to see it.

“I think it would make some sense. I see no rea­son why LM­CS would wish to keep it at the bot­tom of the ocean, and I can see no rea­son why you would want to keep it there. So, if you all can agree to its ex­trac­tion, that is the ide­al thing to do. I en­cour­age it,” Lynch said.

He ad­vised them to in­form the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) of this plan.

It was al­so re­vealed that OS­HA had fi­nalised its re­port on the in­ci­dent, and its coun­sel is ex­am­in­ing the doc­u­ment.

Lynch said the CoE wants it as soon as pos­si­ble and will make it avail­able to every­one soon af­ter.

“I hope it is not go­ing to be nec­es­sary to do any­thing Dra­con­ian in mak­ing sure that we get it, but it is no use hand­ing it to me at East­er next year. We need it next week and will do every­thing we can to get it. Once we get it, you will have it,” Lynch said.

Lynch said Paria’s plan­ner, Ter­rance Ram­per­sads­ingh, had vol­un­teered to give an in­ter­view at the CoE at its base at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts, San Fer­nan­do. He added that the CoE would not pub­lish the video record­ing of the mo­ments af­ter the ac­ci­dent caught on Ali Jr’s Go­Pro, on the com­mis­sion’s web­site for ob­vi­ous rea­sons.

The video was played dur­ing Mon­day’s sit­ting and some of the vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers left the room dur­ing that time be­cause it was too har­row­ing for them.

Lynch said LM­CS, le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the divers’ fam­i­lies are en­ti­tled to the video record­ing. How­ev­er, he said any­one else has to jus­ti­fy why they want it.


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