Families traumatised after child killed in jet ski tragedy

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

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Busi­ness­man and Hin­du pun­dit Dr Don­ny Sam­lal has raised con­cerns about the be­hav­iour of some tour op­er­a­tors at Pi­geon Point Beach, say­ing they ap­peared to be un­der the in­flu­ence short­ly be­fore sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie was killed in a jet ski in­ci­dent.

Dr Sam­lal, whose fam­i­ly is close to the Jo­gie fam­i­ly and whose chil­dren all at­tend San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School, said the in­ci­dent has left them deeply trau­ma­tised, even as they call for ur­gent reg­u­la­tion of the tour op­er­a­tor in­dus­try.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Sam­lal, who was at the beach around the time of the in­ci­dent, de­scribed the tragedy as dev­as­tat­ing and avoid­able.

“My fam­i­ly and I are still trau­ma­tised by the loss of this child,” he said, adding that what he wit­nessed raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about pub­lic safe­ty and over­sight.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 4:30 pm as An­gel­i­ca played in the wa­ter with rel­a­tives in an area des­ig­nat­ed for bathing. A jet ski re­port­ed­ly breached a bar­ri­er sep­a­rat­ing wa­ter­craft from swim­mers and struck the child, her par­ents and her un­cle.

Po­lice said the op­er­a­tor left the scene af­ter the col­li­sion.

The im­pact trig­gered pan­ic among beach­go­ers, as rel­a­tives rushed to pull the bleed­ing and un­con­scious child from the wa­ter. Life­guards im­me­di­ate­ly ad­min­is­tered CPR, while a vis­it­ing doc­tor from the Unit­ed King­dom al­so at­tempt­ed re­sus­ci­ta­tion ef­forts. How­ev­er, An­gel­i­ca re­mained un­re­spon­sive.

Dr Sam­lal said the events lead­ing up to the in­ci­dent were deeply trou­bling, point­ing to what he de­scribed as un­safe be­hav­iour among some jet ski op­er­a­tors.

“One of the ma­jor is­sues was the un­con­trolled use of jet skis by very young op­er­a­tors,” he said. “Many of the users ap­peared care­less and in­ex­pe­ri­enced, and some seemed to be un­der the in­flu­ence.”

He al­so raised con­cerns about what he be­lieved to be cannabis use among some in­di­vid­u­als op­er­at­ing in the area.

“The smell of cannabis was no­tice­able when en­ter­ing a tour boat, and some of the tour guides and op­er­a­tors ap­peared to be un­der the in­flu­ence,” he said. “This is a deeply wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion, as per­sons re­spon­si­ble for guid­ing and trans­port­ing vis­i­tors should be held to the high­est stan­dards of con­duct and safe­ty.”

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy these claims.

Dr Sam­lal said the lack of vis­i­ble law en­force­ment and emer­gency sys­tems at the pop­u­lar tourist site com­pound­ed the dan­ger.

“At a ma­jor tourism site such as Pi­geon Point, there should be clear sys­tems in place for mon­i­tor­ing, reg­u­la­tion and im­me­di­ate emer­gency in­ter­ven­tion,” he said. “The ab­sence of vis­i­ble con­trol on­ly in­creas­es the risk of fur­ther tragedy.”

He warned that the im­pli­ca­tions ex­tend be­yond a sin­gle in­ci­dent, not­ing that To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion as a safe, fam­i­ly-friend­ly des­ti­na­tion could be at risk if ur­gent ac­tion is not tak­en.

“This mat­ter goes be­yond one tragedy. Vis­i­tors come seek­ing safe recre­ation. If these is­sues are not ad­dressed, it can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for pub­lic safe­ty and tourism,” he said.

Dr Sam­lal is now urg­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to launch a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion and im­ple­ment stricter con­trols on jet ski op­er­a­tions.

Among the mea­sures he is call­ing for are age and com­pe­ten­cy re­quire­ments for op­er­a­tors, rou­tine checks for in­tox­i­ca­tion, in­creased law en­force­ment pres­ence, and im­proved emer­gency re­sponse sys­tems at high-traf­fic beach­es.

“The loss of a child’s life un­der these cir­cum­stances is heart­break­ing,” he said. “No fam­i­ly vis­it­ing To­ba­go for leisure should have to en­dure such trau­ma.”

He said the THA must en­sure ma­rine safe­ty and re­duce en­force­ment gaps as there was now an ur­gent need for tighter reg­u­la­tion of recre­ation­al wa­ter­craft.