Survivor Leslie Austin known as ‘Heads’, who worked periodically with Roy Ramdass as a sailor and had been on the job for the past two months, told Stabroek News that the water had been extremely rough.
After he made it safely to shore, he was treated at the Skeldon Hospital for the burns he sustained about his body from the gasoline that was spilt in the water.
When Austin was complimented for his bravery in swimming safely to shore he responded: “Thank you very much but I do not think I did enough, because I was not able to save the others. They asked me to get help for them, but I did not get to do it…”
He said they would normally see the “pins” from the fishing seines floating in the water but on Friday the pins were not visible and a seine became snagged in the boat’s propeller.
“When it [the seine] hook, the boat give a pull down and started to take in water and I decided to jump out of the boat and try to loose it,” he said. A knife was in a tools’ bucket but he “could not reach it fast enough; the seine just pulled down the boat…”
He said he grabbed his lifejacket and put it on while he was in the water and gave Ramdass a gasoline jar to hold onto. But the jar was uncovered and gasoline started to spill out.
Austin said he then grabbed Indranie Motiram, another woman and Henry Gonsalves and tried to get them to hold onto the bow of the boat. He said everyone was panicking and screaming, while he tried to keep his calm. But one woman, “was shouting and screaming and she was confusing me…”
Austin said a boat was passing and they tried to hail it but the noise from the engine made it impossible for the occupants to hear. He said that at that point, Henry Gonsalves begged him to swim to shore to bring back help for them.
He said he started to leave, but turned back as he was not sure what would happen to them if he left them there alone, but when they continued to scream, he decided to be brave and struck out for shore.
The man averaged that he swam for about two and a half miles, passing three channels and sand banks, praying all the way. According to him, when he hit the first sand bank he felt he had reached the shore and started to walk, but suddenly found himself deep in water again.
Exhausted, and panting for breath, Austin said, he even crawled in the muddy areas close to the sand banks. At one stage, he saw a boat flashing its light (apparently from the search team) and he called out but there was no response.
When he finally reached shore, it was at Number 63 Beach. Austin said he was so overjoyed, he somehow found the energy to run. Along his way to the public road, he met two persons and asked them to help him make a phone call but they responded that they had forgotten their phones.
They told him to go to the mandir nearby for assistance but he ran past the mandir until he reached the public road. Unable to go any further, he threw himself down in front of a resident’s home and lay there groaning for help.
The owner heard the dogs barking and went out to check and found Austin. Once he learnt what had happened, he contacted the boat owners.
The owner of a car, who was summoned to take Austin to Corriverton, told this newspaper that he took the man to the landing first where they contacted the police and the coast guard. After that, he was taken to the hospital.
The coast guard also contacted the Berbice Anti-Smuggling Squad, but it was unable to go out in the water because it “didn’t have sea-worthy vessel.”
