A popular Vreed-en-Hoop boat operator, who assisted the police in recovering a body from the Demerara River, died in a freak accident a short while later yesterday.
Desmond Dowding called `Dread’ of Jetty, Railway Dam, Vreed-en-Hoop plunged to his death at the Transport and Harbours stelling some time after noon. Dowding had just pulled the body to land and decided to take a plunge back into the river to wash himself off. He broke his neck on the dive.
Reports are that it initially appeared as though Dowding was joking when he plunged and came up with his head tilted to one side. But when he started going under an alarm was raised and someone went to his rescue but it was too late.
Dowding was pronounced dead on arrival at the West Demerara Regional Hospital where he was rushed within minutes of being rescued. Stabroek News was told that the man who went to rescue Dowding sustained a gash to his hand. This led people to begin saying that the body was cursed.
The name `Dread’ was on every lip at the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling and the surrounding areas yesterday. While some expressed anger and fought back emotions, others wept openly for the man who they said was “a man among men at the stelling”.
“`Dread’ woulda plunge in da river fuh you, me, he, she, anybody cause that is de type ah man he was. He don’t play fuh help people and from de time he see dah man floating he de done decide fuh go and get he,” a friend said fighting back tears.
Boat operator, Sylvannus Sinclair who witnessed the accident told this newspaper that sometime after 10 am he, Dowding and a few other operators spotted a body floating in the river. They alerted the police who arrived shortly after.
Sinclair said the body was hooked in a clump of bushes so when the police came they had to go out in a boat and tie it then pull it close to the stelling. When the body reached the stelling they saw it was a man with dreadlocks but no one recognized who he was.
The police wanted someone to go in the river and bring the dead man in so Dowding volunteered but for a fee. He was offered $3,000 and he went in and got the man up. Sinclair said they decided not to use the area where the boat offloads because passengers would have been greeted with a dead body as they got off the boat.
“The police decide to use the front of the stelling so `Dread’ went around and bring the man up. But as soon as he come up and collect the money, he run and plunge in the river just like that. He say something about washing off and that was it. Those were his last words,” Sinclair related.
Dowding, after seeing the body into the hearse that had arrived at the stelling, ran off and took a plunge back into the river. There was some hard mud around where he plunged.
Sinclair said the whole thing was so shocking no one knew what to say right away except that Dowding was dead. He said the police and everyone were just speechless.
Up to press time last night the dead man was unidentified and the police had not released any information regarding the body being found.
Sinclair recalled that while Dowding was bringing in the body he was talking to the dead man saying words to the effect that it was time for the man to go home to his maker. “He busy telling de man how he going home, he going home and he gone home too,” Sinclair said.
Over at Dowding’s home, family and friends were gathered around his mother, Gloria Murray comforting her. The elderly woman fainted on learning of her son’s death. She was later admitted to the WDRH suffering from hypertension. After she was released some three hours later, Murray struggled to stay calm and repeatedly screamed her son’s name.
“`Dread’ is how you gon do me this? `Dread’ why? Why? Ah only see you this morning and we talk and now ya dead `Dread’? Ya dead?” the mother cried.
Around her, family and friends gathered urging her to be calm but many were also crying. Dowding’s younger brothers asked between sobs how they would continue without him. His wife who showed up shortly after was unable to say much.
Dowding leaves to mourn his wife, a son and several brothers, his mother and his father.