First aid knowledge could have saved drowning victim
– Relatives claim
RELATIVES of dead Rhonda Da Silva, 23, of Kwakwani, Berbice River, said, yesterday, that if cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had been performed on her when she was pulled from the river on Tuesday, she would have been alive today. But persons at the scene could not perform the operation and the pregnant woman, who was still breathing after being taken from under a barge, succumbed.
Da Silva was sucked under the vessel after the small paddle boat in which she was crossing the river in company with her daughter and husband, Ivan La Rose, 56, capsized.
It happened about 16:25hrs as they were going to her grandmother’s house. They were nearing the landing and were passing an empty barge being towed by a tug, when its propeller stopped.
However, it suddenly restarted and, by then, the paddle boat was caught in the turbulence. La Rose and his daughter were thrown out of the craft while Da Silva was drawn below the barge and trapped.
Persons in a passing boat saw what had happened and rendered assistance and she was located and brought to shore, still breathing but died, sometime after, because nobody at the scene knew how to render  first aid.
The barge belongs to Olendendorf, a shipping company in Berbice and the tug is operated by RUSAL Bauxite Company, and was at the time about to load bauxite onto the empty barge when the accident occurred.
A barge laden with bauxite was also in position but La Rose had paddled his boat between it and the tug in the vicinity of the ore crushing plant at Kwakwani.
Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) Harbour Master Volton Skeete and Chief Navigation Officer Michael Tennant visited Kwakwani, on Tuesday, to carry out investigations into the occurrence and were, yesterday, compiling a report, recommending a course of action for Public Works Minister Robeson Benn.
Meanwhile, a post mortem examination was done on the body of Da Silva yesterday but the results are not yet available.