‘Mentally drained’ hunters leave Tobago after failed search for little Angelo

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Af­ter eight tire­less days of search­ing for two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza, Val­lence Ramb­harat, leader of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team, says his group are men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly drained.

The hunters re­turned to Trinidad on the fast fer­ry yes­ter­day morn­ing, fol­low­ing po­lice re­ports of a sus­pect con­fess­ing to killing the tod­dler on Wednes­day.

An­ge­lo was re­port­ed miss­ing from his Cam­bridge Trace, Good­wood home on May 11, trig­ger­ing a na­tion­al out­cry.

The group had ar­rived on the is­land on May 14, im­me­di­ate­ly tak­ing over the ground op­er­a­tions in a des­per­ate search for the child.

Ramb­harat said his re­lent­less group helped search the Stud­ley Park land­fill, rocky shore­line, bushy ter­rain and oth­er ar­eas of in­ter­est.

He told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day their op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go were the longest-ever for the or­gan­i­sa­tion and it had be­gun to take an emo­tion­al toll on his mem­bers.

He said, "Our fit­ness is still at an op­ti­mal lev­el. How­ev­er, men­tal­ly, I thought it nec­es­sary for the team to take a break. It has been an emo­tion­al roller­coast­er...It was tax­ing us men­tal­ly."

He said he no­ticed it dur­ing morn­ing brief­in­gs and dur­ing evening de­brief­in­gs with the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA).

"You get mem­bers an­gry at the fact that a child may have lost his life in this sit­u­a­tion. The emo­tion­al ex­haus­tion of not lo­cat­ing his body is telling on us men­tal­ly," he said.

He said if the team had not de­part­ed To­ba­go, he would have giv­en them the day off yes­ter­day.

"There is some­thing called a crash mo­ment when you keep on go­ing for a long while."

He said the hunters held dai­ly brief­in­gs at 7.15 am and then wrapped up their search­es late at night be­fore a de­brief­ing.

Ramb­harat still praised his mem­bers for their morale in the face of ad­ver­si­ty.

"There has been no flare ups, no grumpi­ness, noth­ing on their part — but I could gauge (they need­ed a break),” he said.

Ramb­harat said it was al­so im­por­tant for mem­bers to re­con­nect with their fam­i­lies.

He said the hunters will re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly if they are need­ed to con­tin­ue the search.

Psy­chol­o­gist: Na­tion is trau­ma­tised

Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty psy­chol­o­gist Ah­halia Ram­dass told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the tragedy has in­voked strong emo­tions and re­open­ing old wounds left by pre­vi­ous cas­es in­volv­ing the death of chil­dren in sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances.

"It is not the first time that a very young child is in a po­si­tion where we don't know what hap­pened. There aren't many an­swers so there is hope, and fear and hope bat­tling each oth­er," Ram­dass said.

Ram­dass said the in­ci­dent has chal­lenged peo­ple's per­cep­tions about trust and safe­ty.

She said, "It's gonna bring up thoughts and feel­ing of anx­i­ety about their own chil­dren and their safe­ty. We have to al­so be mind­ful, his­tor­i­cal­ly, we have had so many cas­es in­volv­ing young chil­dren that still has so many ques­tions hov­er­ing around it."

She said peo­ple are con­stant­ly search­ing for up­dates about the sit­u­a­tion be­cause they are des­per­ate for some clo­sure.

"It is not un­nat­ur­al for per­sons in the wider com­mu­ni­ty who have no af­fil­i­a­tion with this child to have this deep emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence with this child."

In a close-knit com­mu­ni­ty such as Good­wood, she said the in­ci­dent could frag­ment the vil­lage as trust has been dam­aged.

"It's a two-year-old child that some­thing has hap­pened to. Per­sons in the com­mu­ni­ty would have got ac­cus­tomed see­ing this child on the streets, in­ter­act­ing with the child. It is for the com­mu­ni­ty to band to­geth­er, sup­port each oth­er," Ram­dass said.

She warned peo­ple to lim­it their ex­po­sure to in­for­ma­tion if they be­gin to feel over­whelmed.

"It may mean they need to tune out just a lit­tle bit, it doesn't mean you don't care," she said.

She said peo­ple in dis­tress should seek help to bet­ter equip them­selves with cop­ing skills.