A game of cricket ended tragically yesterday afternoon for a group of boys after one of them, a 13-year-old drowned in the rough waters off the Kingston Seawall.
Dead is Nicholas Sooklall, a student of Plaisance Secondary School who resided at Lot 2 Ogle Front, East Coast Demerara.
While information surrounding the incident is sketchy, reports revealed that around 5 pm yesterday, Sooklall and a group of friends were playing cricket on the beach. As they were about to end the game, Sooklall disappeared and was later seem floating in the water.
Other information revealed that the teenager informed his friends that he was going to “wash-off” his skin in the water. However, after about 15 minutes passed and they did not see him return they became worried and then saw his body floating.
An alarm was raised and an ambulance was summoned. When this newspaper visited the scene scores of persons had gathered at the seawall, in vicinity of the bandstand, looking as Emergency Medical Technicians tried to resuscitate the boy.
Sooklall was later placed in an ambulance and taken to the Georgetown Public Hopsital where he was pronounced dead.
At the hospital, Sooklall’s father related that he was at home when he received a call from one of his son’s friends informing him that he should hurry to the seawall bandstand since Sooklall had been involved in an accident.
“I rushed out the house because I thought he mussy get in some fight or so and when I come then they tell me what happened,” the distraught man said.
Police officers including ranks from the Criminal Investigations Department were present at the scene and they later transported Sooklall’s friends who were present during the incident to the Brickdam Police station for questioning.
