A father who heroically rescued his seven-year-old daughter and went back to save his neighbour’s child was among three people who perished when the speedboat they were in capsized in the Abary Creek around 11 am yesterday.

Dead are Jainarine ‘Satesh’ Koshilla, 32, a mechanic; the child he tried to rescue, seven-year-old Deanna Ramjit of Bush Lot; and Sharda Singh, 37, of Number Two Settlement, Blairmont ,West Berbice. Singh was still alive when she was found and was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

A rescue team used a “hook with a long line during a lengthy search” to pull out the bodies of Ramjit, a Grade Three student of the Lachmansingh Primary School and Koshilla, separately, a few hours after the mishap.

A relative who was part of the team told this newspaper that when they were found they both had their arms outstretched “as if they were hugging each other.”

The three were part of a group that left Bush Lot around 8:30 am yesterday to go on a picnic. They travelled by land along the Onverwagt dam and continued on the all-weather road.

Reports are that eight women and the children entered the boat that was captained by Koshilla while several other people were waiting on the dam to be ferried across the creek.

Koshilla’s wife of nine years, Natasha Jagmohan told Stabroek News yesterday that the boat had just pulled off when it started to “take in water” and thereafter capsized.

She said her husband took his daughter to safety and had gone back to rescue Ramjit “and he went down and never come up back.”

Amid panic and screams, some male relatives who were waiting to go across and waded into the creek and pulled the women to safety.

Singh’s mother, Dularie Singh recalled that her daughter left home around 8 am to join the others at Bush Lot for the trip which turned tragic. According to the woman, who is here on holiday from Canada, she remained at home with Singh’s four-year-old son, Alex.

Singh who was separated from her husband also leaves to mourn four other children who reside in Canada; Anthony, 19, Maria, 17, Christine, 14 and seven-year-old Kevin.

Dularie Singh said it was around midday that she received a telephone call from someone who told her “the boat sink”, and that her daughter was being taken to the hospital. She left to go to the hospital also, but by the time she got there she learnt that her daughter had died.

The distressed woman told this newspaper that she had travelled to Guyana with several other relatives from Canada to dispose of her father’s ashes.

She said they had already performed a religious function in honour of her father on Sunday.

The others decided to visit the creek to have a good time but regrettably

they ended up in mourning instead, she said in an interview at a relative’s house at Bath Settlement.

A survivor, Lynette Balram, who was also at the house, was crying inconsolably. She was too shaken to relate what had transpired.