Two teenagers drowned yesterday in separate incidents: one after going for a swim in the Lamaha Canal with friends and one as a result of an occasional illness.
Dead is Ashaka Dover, 13, of G28 Guyhoc Gardens and Shawn Bacchus, 17, of Six Second Street, Meadowbank.
According to reports received by Stabroek News, Ashaka left home yesterday in the company of three friends around 8:30 am. They went to the Lamaha Canal popularly called the ‘Blacka’ to swim. The youth apparently jumped into the canal and did not come up until someone went in to get him.
A police source indicated that upon investigation it was noted that Ashaka’s head was twisted in an unorthodox angle. This would seem to suggest that the young man’s neck was broken though police are still investigating the possible scenarios that could have resulted in Ashaka losing his life.
The lad’s mother Fay Dover told Stabroek News at her home that she had left for church early yesterday and when she got back home at close to 9 am Ashaka was not there. His elder brother told her that he was out. After making breakfast for him, three of the young man’s friends called at the gate around 10 am.
The boy’s mother said she knew one of them was his friend and he was the one who told her that they had gone to swim and Ashaka had plunged in to the water and drowned. She was told that they took him to the St Joseph Mercy Hospital. However, when Fay got to the hospital she was told her son was not there. The receptionist there called Woodlands and Medical Arts Hospitals but her son was not at either of these. She then decided that the Georgetown Hospital was the last resort and there she discovered that her son’s body had been taken there earlier but no one had accompanied him.
Ashaka who would have celebrated his 14th birthday next Sunday has left his mother, father, two sisters and a brother behind. His two sisters and father live overseas while Ashaka resided with his mother and brother in Guyhoc Gardens.
Bacchus’ mother Lavern Samaroo told this newspaper that she had just gotten home around 10:30 am when a young man arrived and told her that her son was dead.
She explained that her son suffered from fits and convulsions that affect his entire body and he was hit by a bout of those symptoms prior to drowning.
She related that Bacchus was sitting on a table at a koker in the northern part of Meadowbank, when his body went into convulsions throwing him off the table and into a trench. According to reports she received he fell face first and swallowed water.
Bacchus, a budding artist who cleaned fish in the village to earn his keep, has left to mourn his mother and two sisters.
