Four tourists among 9 injured in Pigeon Point boat crash

Stephon Nicholas

Four in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors were among nine peo­ple in­jured in a boat­ing ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go, on Sun­day.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hil Kirk con­firmed that the non-na­tion­als in­clud­ed tourists from Cana­da, the Unit­ed King­dom and Guyana.

Chief sur­geon at Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal, Dr Ian Ram­nar­ine, who was in To­ba­go for the week­end, warned that con­tin­ued ma­rine ac­ci­dents could dam­age the is­land’s tourism prod­uct.

Ram­nar­ine helped life­guards as­sess the in­jured be­fore emer­gency ser­vices ar­rived and trans­port­ed them to Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Eye­wit­ness­es said a loud bang was heard at about 5.43pm when the ves­sels Wa­ter Junkie and Gamechang­er col­lid­ed al­most head-on near the bathing-on­ly zone.

One fe­male pas­sen­ger aboard Gamechang­er was thrown in­to the air and land­ed in the oth­er ves­sel, while oth­er pas­sen­gers were flung in­to the sea.

The ac­ci­dent comes five months af­ter sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie was struck and killed by a jet ski while in the re­strict­ed bathing area.