THE body of Chelsea Avanna Fernandes, 16, who disappeared while swimming with her cousins at New Hope last Saturday, was yesterday fished out of the murky waters of the New Hope River, following an intense search by relatives and members and friends of the Craig Assembly of God Church.
Her body was last night lying at the Lyken Funeral Home, awaiting a post mortem. Her deeply distraught mother, Camille Scott, who was on vacation abroad, received the tragic news on Saturday and was forced to cut short her stay and fly home.  She arrived at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri, yesterday afternoon and shortly afterwards learnt that her daughter’s body had been found.

Scott, who tried to be strong as she spoke with this newspaper at their home at 851 Section “C” Block “Y” Golden Grove, East Bank Demerara said that while away from home, she would routinely call on Saturdays to enquire about her children who were left in the care of an elder sister.

“I would normally call early – around 08:30 or 09:00hrs, but on that Saturday I did not manage to call home until around 14:00hrs,” Camille said.
She said the first thing she did was ask her sister for the children, and the woman replied that Chelsea had gone to another aunt, Sharon Fraser, a mother of eight at New Hope to spend the day. Then with trepidation, she went on to say that the teen had gone swimming with some of her cousins and had disappeared.

Camille said she is still baffled to know why Chelsea decided to go into the Hope River, since she was never a strong swimmer. “In fact, Chelsea, can’t swim. She would try a thing, but is now learning,” her mother lamented.

Meanwhile, family members from the New Hope household, said they learnt from one of her cousins, Stephon, 13, that it was Chelsea who suggested that they go for the swim. Stephon said when they were ready to come  out of the water, Chelsea insisted that she wanted to take a last plunge. She took the plunge, and that was the last time she was seen alive.

Her cousins alerted adult relatives who rushed to the riverside and managed to get the others out of the water.  The police were alerted and a civilian search mounted.

Chelsea, a student of Covent Garden Secondary School,  had been preparing for the CSEC Examinations. 
Chelsea is survived by her parents, an elder sister Felicia, younger brother Victor, and her aunts and other relatives.