BOY DROWNS IN BELMONT DRAIN

According to police, Josiah and his seven-year-old sister, Christine Gray, were home alone after their father, Jerome Henry, left for work around 7.30 am on Friday. Around 12.25 pm, Henry received a call that Josiah fell into a drain during heavy rainfall and was washed away into the East Dry River.

Police, Fire Service, and Coast Guard were called and they, along with neighbours and relatives, conducted a search of the area.

Unfortunately, around 10 am yesterday, the Coast Guard and police received a call that a body was sighted in the Gulf of Paria close to the hotel. The Coast Guard sent an interceptor to retrieve the body which was then handed over to the waiting police and the District Medical Officer.

When Sunday Newsday visited the Serraneau Road home yesterday, Henry was not at home. The small, one-storey house was situated in a yard with another house which overlooks his home. However neighbours noted the children had only recently moved there to live with their father who was separated from their mother.

One neighbour, who was at home at the time of the incident, said children of the area were playing in the rain while Josiah and Gray were inside. However, when the rain slowed to a drizzle, the siblings joined the others outside and jumped into the drain to play in the water.

She said around noon, her son ran into the house to tell her that “Jojo” had jumped into the water.

She and her niece ran out the house and down the road, scanning the drain to see if they could find Josiah to no avail.

They returned to the house, called the police and rushed back out to continue looking for the boy. “The water was really coming down. The children in the area know not to go in the drain when the water is like that. They won’t even go close to the edge, but Josiah wasn’t from around here,” she said.

Another neighbour, who described Josiah as a jovial, playful, bright-eyed little boy, said she was on her way home in a taxi when she heard the news. She immediately jumped out the taxi and kept a close eye on the drains as she walked home. When she arrived, she said she saw almost the whole neighbourhood, including Henry, in the drains, checking the “tunnels” and searching desperately for the boy.

At that point she said they got a call that a body was found near Sea Lots. On their way, they noticed people checking the drains almost every step of the way.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. Down by the Harp, almost every step of the way, we saw people in the canal, looking underneath the bridges, in the little tunnels.

And then it looked like the whole of Sea Lots was out searching the banks or out in boats prodding the bottom with poles. It was something else,” she said.

The police added that when Henry was taken to the Belmont Police Station on Friday to give a statement, he collapsed and had to be taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital for treatment. However he was released from hospital yesterday and was being questioned by police and remained at the station up to last evening.

Josiah’s aunt Joanne Henry yesterday told Sunday Newsday that the children’s mother, Jamie Gray, will take care of Christine.

“It is just so sad that he had to die this way. He was so young and innocent. But God knows best,” Joanne said in a soft voice.

As investigations continue into Josiah’s drowning, police in Tobago are also investigating the circumstances surrounding the drowning death of 16-month-old Loren Daniel.

Loren, reports stated, was left asleep in a bed while her mother, Shirla Kerr, carried out duties at the a villa at Tobago Plantation property where she worked as a cleaner.

The child went missing and when checks were made her body was found in the pool at the back of the property.

The drowning deaths of the two children have not gone unnoticed as Chief Fire Officer Roosevelt Bruce yesterday issued advice to parents asking them to exercise extreme caution with their children around open water sources.

He said, “We have a situation in Tobago where a 16-month-old girl drowned in a pool. Parents must be extremely careful with their children around open water sources and more where there are floods and rivers. It is very easy (for them) to be taken away with the motion, the momentum of the water.

Keep your children away. If you have heavy rainfall and you know that the area is prone to flood, keep the children inside.”. 17