‘TOBAGO PAINS FOR ANGELICA’

Stephon Nicholas &

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is weigh­ing an out­right ban on the use of jet skis in To­ba­go, fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at Pi­geon Point on Wednes­day.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, hours af­ter po­lice ar­rest­ed the op­er­a­tor of the jet ski in­volved in the trag­ic in­ci­dent, Au­gus­tine said the safe­ty of vis­i­tors and res­i­dents is non-ne­go­tiable and Jo­gie’s death was en­tire­ly pre­ventable.

Au­gus­tine said the in­ci­dent had shak­en him and left To­ba­go and the en­tire coun­try in pain.

“We had an in­ci­dent that oc­curred and the op­er­a­tor fled the scene. That does not look good for the en­tire is­land. The en­tire is­land is now pained. The en­tire coun­try is now pained. This is a child who has not had the ben­e­fit of life—full life. So much po­ten­tial gone. I could on­ly think of my own daugh­ter. I have one seed, imag­ine if that gone in that way. I dun­no if mad house go pick me up,” Au­gus­tine said.

Asked whether dis­cus­sions are un­der­way about ban­ning the use of jet skis on the is­land, he said, “It is some­thing be­ing con­sid­ered now.”

Au­gus­tine said the con­cerns around the reck­less use of jet skis have lin­gered for years and the in­dus­try faced a tem­po­rary clo­sure in 2011 un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He not­ed jet skis are cur­rent­ly pro­hib­it­ed from op­er­at­ing in the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park and are on­ly per­mit­ted to tra­verse through to get to a sep­a­rate des­ti­na­tion. He said he has al­so in­struct­ed Sec­re­tary of Le­gal Af­fairs Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace to de­ter­mine whether the THA could sue tour op­er­a­tors and wa­ter­sports op­er­a­tors who breach the rules sur­round­ing ar­eas un­der its re­mit.

“We will use every mus­cle we have. We will use every le­gal au­thor­i­ty we can find to go af­ter in­di­vid­u­als...,” Au­gus­tine said.

“We don’t have au­thor­i­ty to take ac­tion through the route of crim­i­nal court but we can take civ­il ac­tion, and we very much in­tend to do so to the ex­tent where will bank­rupt some of them if they don’t know how to be­have... How much more talk we go talk.”

Au­gus­tine said the in­ci­dent had over­shad­owed a ro­bust East­er sea­son for tourism, which saw over 11,000 pas­sen­gers on 502 flights be­tween March 27 and April 12. The seabridge al­so saw over 21,000 pas­sen­gers and over 500 ve­hi­cles trans­port­ed from April 1-7. The Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park al­so saw a surge in vis­i­tors with 3,000 pa­trons on East­er Sun­day and 3,381 vis­i­tors on East­er Mon­day.

He said the THA would do what­ev­er it takes to en­sure des­ti­na­tion To­ba­go is not un­der­mined.

Mean­while, An­gel­i­ca’s aunt post­ed a trib­ute to her on Face­book yes­ter­day, say­ing the fam­i­ly would al­ways re­mem­ber her as for­ev­er young, for­ev­er hap­py and for­ev­er an an­gel.

“She was a gift to this world,” she wrote.

An­gel­i­ca died on Wednes­day af­ter­noon af­ter be­ing struck by a jet ski while play­ing in the wa­ter with rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing fa­ther Arnold and moth­er Sal­isha, at Pi­geon Point.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the jet ski breached a bar­ri­er sep­a­rat­ing wa­ter­craft from swim­mers short­ly af­ter 4.30 pm, plough­ing in­to An­gel­i­ca, her par­ents and her un­cle. The child was pulled from the wa­ter, bleed­ing and un­con­scious, as fran­tic rel­a­tives and by­standers rushed to help. Her un­cle was al­so in­jured, and her fa­ther was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day night.

Af­ter she was hit, life­guards im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan CPR while a vis­it­ing doc­tor from the Unit­ed King­dom joined ef­forts to save her. De­spite their at­tempts, An­gel­i­ca nev­er re­gained con­scious­ness.

Mourn­ing gripped the San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry School com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, as stu­dents, par­ents and staff strug­gled to come to terms with the trag­ic loss Jo­gie.

De­scribed as a “beau­ti­ful an­gel” and an “A” stu­dent, school prin­ci­pal Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said An­gel­i­ca’s death had left an aching void with­in the TML fam­i­ly, where her warmth, dis­ci­pline and qui­et bril­liance had al­ready be­gun to leave a last­ing mark.

Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, in a heart­felt mes­sage to par­ents, re­mem­bered the Stan­dard One pupil as “bright, beau­ti­ful, well-dis­ci­plined and full of promise,” adding that her “gen­tle spir­it and pos­i­tive pres­ence touched the lives of her class­mates, teach­ers and all who had the priv­i­lege of know­ing her.”

“This is a heart­break­ing tragedy for our en­tire school com­mu­ni­ty,” she said, as she ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to An­gel­i­ca’s griev­ing fam­i­ly and as­sured that coun­selling sup­port was be­ing mo­bilised for stu­dents, staff and rel­a­tives af­fect­ed by the loss,” the prin­ci­pal said.

An­gel­i­ca’s death has ig­nit­ed re­newed calls for tighter reg­u­la­tion of recre­ation­al wa­ter­craft, in­clud­ing stricter li­cenc­ing re­quire­ments, en­force­ment of des­ig­nat­ed zones, so­bri­ety checks for op­er­a­tors and a stronger pres­ence of ma­rine pa­trols at high-traf­fic beach­es.

Among those mak­ing the call was busi­ness­man and Hin­du pun­dit Dr Don­ny Sam­lal, a close fam­i­ly friend who was at the beach at the time. He said the in­ci­dent had left his fam­i­ly deeply trau­ma­tised.

“My fam­i­ly and I are still trau­ma­tised by the loss of this child,” he said, de­scrib­ing the mo­ments lead­ing up to the col­li­sion as deeply trou­bling.

“One of the ma­jor is­sues was the un­con­trolled use of jet skis by very young op­er­a­tors,” Sam­lal said.

“Many of the users ap­peared care­less, and some seemed to be heav­i­ly in­tox­i­cat­ed.”

He al­so raised con­cerns about the ap­par­ent use of cannabis among some tour op­er­a­tors.

“These are peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for guid­ing and trans­port­ing vis­i­tors. They should be held to the high­est stan­dards of safe­ty,” he said.

The ab­sence of vis­i­ble law en­force­ment and struc­tured safe­ty sys­tems at the pop­u­lar beach, he added, on­ly height­ened the risk.

“At a ma­jor tourism site like Pi­geon Point, there should be clear sys­tems in place for mon­i­tor­ing, reg­u­la­tion and im­me­di­ate emer­gency in­ter­ven­tion. The ab­sence of con­trol in­creas­es the like­li­hood of tragedy.”

“No fam­i­ly vis­it­ing To­ba­go for leisure should have to en­dure such trau­ma,” Sam­lal said.

“The loss of a child’s life un­der these cir­cum­stances is heart­break­ing.”

In the school’s What­sApp chats, an out­pour­ing of love and sup­port came for the griev­ing fam­i­ly. An­gel­i­ca’s school­mates and her teacher, Salma Elahie-Ali, were dis­traught over the death of the gen­tle, bril­liant and well-man­nered child.Teach­ers de­scribed her as qui­et­ly de­ter­mined, re­spect­ful and ea­ger to learn. Par­ents urged the THA to act de­ci­sive­ly.