Fifty-year-old Phillip Adams was already in bed on Saturday night when he was approached by some fellow church members who were stranded and needed a drop home.
He willingly agreed. It was to be his last journey as minutes after he left his Canal Bank, Port Kaituma, North West District home, a boat piloted by an intoxicated young man who was earlier “showing off his skills” on the waterway slammed into his small boat.
The body of Adams, a father of three, was recovered just around 3am yesterday, hours after the accident that also left nine-year-old Nikesha James dead. James, her mother and other siblings were in the boat with Phillip and his wife Eslyn Benn and her two young children including a nine-month–old baby.
Yesterday, residents in the area were angry that the man who was operating the boat that struck Adams’ vessel had escaped. They criticized the police handling of the investigation as up to yesterday afternoon neither the boat nor its engine had been seized by the lawmen. The residents said that the operator of the boat and its three other occupants-including two females-were very callous in their actions as they failed to stop and render assistance to the injured.
Reports reaching Stabroek News revealed that the young man who was piloting the boat works for the owner of the boat, a well known miner in the area who was in the interior at the time. “He was drunk and earlier in the day he was showing off on the river and zig zagging on the water,” a female resident told Stabroek News yesterday.
Another resident said that the man “parked the boat in the creek and escaped” but others said he and the son of the owner-who was also in the boat at the time of the accident-and the two females were later seen in the village.“They must be just saying how he gone because dem police ain’t even search the house or anything and for all you know he right there,” one resident said.
While some residents said the man hails from the Pomeroon area, APNU parliamentarian Richard Allen said that the man is Venezuelan and hails from an area called ‘The Line’, which is on the border between the two countries. He said that the young man goes by the name Keiven and reports are that he has already fled to the neighbouring country. Allen said the police should have taken the boat and engine into custody and questioned the three other occupants.
Attempts by Stabroek News to get a comment from Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn or an official at the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) on the accident were unsuccessful.
The James’ family had approached Adams and requested a drop home and he was heading to pick up James’ father and her sister Nikita a short distance away, when tragedy struck.
Recounting their last minutes before the accident, Benn said that it is because her husband attends the same church with the Jameses that he decided to take them home. They had attended a wedding of one of their sons a short distance away.
Benn said she decided to go for the ride and her husband was “wearing a bright light on he head” at the time of the accident and should have been seen by the other boat operator. The woman said she was sitting in the middle of the boat with her child and the young girl when she heard the other boat approaching. “I ain’t even know how this thing really happen but I just know deh boat hit we and me lil son fall down and deh lil girl fall down too,” Benn said adding that she scrambled to pick up her son even as she held on to the baby in her arms.
“Is then I see the woman pick up she child and start hollering how she baby dead and is den I look back and I ain’t see Phillip nor deh engine,” the woman recalled.
She said the other occupants in the boat then used some boards and paddled to the landing and Nikesha was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. Many persons then searched for Adams and his body was later found a short distance away from where the accident happened.
Benn yesterday described her husband as a “good person” who did farming for a living and she called on the authorities to bring the operator of the other boat to justice. One of Adam’s friends, Brian Gomes also described the now dead man as a “very good guy” adding that they practically grew up together and it was very devastating for him to die in such manner.
“The boat and engine should be in custody,” Gomes said pointing out that two persons lost their lives.
Meantime, sixteen-year-old Nikita recalled that she was standing with her father waiting for the boat to pick them up when she heard screaming. She said that they could not see what transpired because the place was dark but they knew something terrible had happened. Yesterday, she said her mother was too distraught to speak. Nikesha was the last child for her parents and she attended the Port Kaituma Primary School.
The four persons in the boat that hit Adams’ vessel had just left what some described as a resort where persons would go for entertainment when the collision occurred.
Yesterday, some persons complained about the fact that the operator of the entertainment spot continued to play music loudly even though the now dead man lived a short distance away. One relative said that Adams’ mother sent a message to the man and asked him to turn the music down “because she get a headache and can’t tek deh noise and he say how he ain’t get time with that.”
Saturday’s accident followed a horrific one in January that left ten persons dead when two small boats collided in the Crab Falls area in the Mazaruni River. Prior to that, in December six persons, including three children, died after the boat they were travelling in collided with another boat owned by the Region Two administration in the Pomeroon River. The captain of that boat has since been charged.
In the wake of these two accidents MARAD had pledged to step up its safety activities and had begun visits to several riverain communities.
