Trinidad boy, 13, drowns after being pulled out to sea

(Trinidad Guardian) Clutch­ing a rock as she strug­gled to es­cape bat­ter­ing waves and strong cur­rents, Rad­ha Ju­goon watched in dis­may as her 13-year-old son drowned in the sea while swim­ming in the Morne Di­a­blo Beach on Sat­ur­day.

The body of Nicholas Ma­haraj, 13, a stu­dent of Fyz­abad Com­pos­ite, was found lodged be­tween two rocks around 1:30 pm, more than an hour af­ter he dis­ap­peared. Po­lice said Ma­haraj and his par­ents, Ju­goon, 43 and Pran Chaitram, 60, went to the beach with a neigh­bour Kam­la Ramb­ha­ran, when tragedy struck.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Ju­goon said she was re­luc­tant to go in the wa­ter but her son en­cour­aged her say­ing she should have some fun. While swim­ming, the cur­rents caused them to drift to­wards some rocks.

Ju­goon said when she re­alised they were drift­ing she be­gan call­ing out to her friend who was swim­ming clos­er to Ma­haraj.

“I said Mala, don’t go there. Get out of the wa­ter. You go­ing too deep. She start­ed to call me loud­ly and that was when we start­ed to get in­to prob­lems. I see her hold­ing my son’s hands and then she let him go. The waves threw us against the rocks. I thought I was go­ing to die. I see my son by the rocks and then he went down and did not come back up,” she said.

Ramb­ha­ran man­aged to fight the waves and she made it to shore.

Chaitram who was sit­ting on a hill­side watch­ing their food said he re­alised some­thing was wrong when he saw them drift­ing.

“I ran out and I did not see them in the wa­ter. Then I saw Mala ly­ing on the sand. Her arms and legs were bleed­ing. Then I saw Nicholas’ moth­er be­hind the rocks. I helped her to get out. She told me that Nicholas was lost and she was not see­ing him,” Chaitram said.

He added that hav­ing suf­fered two heart at­tacks, he could not go in­to the wa­ter to find his son.

Po­lice and Coast Guard of­fi­cers were called in but it was fish­er­man An­tho­ny Ram­nath who found the body.

Ram­nath said Ma­haraj’s body was ly­ing on the rocks.

“His head was fac­ing the sea and his mouth and eyes were closed,” Ram­nath said. Para­medics rushed him to the Siparia Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. Chaitram said over the past month, he, Ju­goon and Ma­haraj have been en­joy­ing week­ends at the beach. He said the week be­fore, they spent the night at Quinam Beach and this week­end, they planned to spend the night at Morne Di­a­blo.

Chaitram de­scribed his son as a lov­ing child who en­joyed go­ing to church, lis­ten­ing to mu­sic, and play­ing games.

A team of of­fi­cers led by Ag Cpl Ken­rick Singh and WPC Mo­hammed vis­it­ed the scene. An au­top­sy will be done on the body at the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary on Mon­day.