A FAMILY is mourning the loss of their sole breadwinner who drowned while trying to avert a major disaster at the docks of the Number 66 Fisheries, East Berbice,Corentyne on Saturday.

Dead is Bhairo Persaud called ‘Geer’, 45, of Number 55 Village, East
Berbice, Corentyne.

According to reports, around 11:30 hrs, a boat belonging to Harry Persaud,called ‘Chona’, caught fire moments after it was laden with over 250 gallons of gasoline and other items in preparation for a second voyage out to sea.

Emamudeen Nezam called ‘Budo’, a worker who was in the process of wrapping up the hose from his tanker, said he heard a loud “boom” in the vicinity of the cabin and saw fire spreading towards the back which had five drums of gasoline.

“I just done load gas in them drums and did wrapping up the hose to move off when I hear “boom” from the cabin and see fire spread to the back and I see the boy who went in the cabin jump out. The other boy who de deh at the back jump off and we start fuh push the boat away from the others cause them de deh close.”

Within minutes, he said everyone at the fisheries converged to help to prevent the fire from spreading.

“As soon as the boat ketch afire, we cut the rope that tie it and start fuh use them long sticks to push it away but it hardly moving because the tide did falling”

Nezam said they did managed to get the boat a safe distance away from the others,but the barrels with the gasoline caught afire and the fire engulfed the entire boat and scorched the others.
By this time, they tried to ground the boat by cutting it with a chain saw to allow
water to get in and sink it.
An excavator at work on the Number 66 Bridge was summoned to dump mud on the fire and it managed to partially sink the burning boat.

It was while this was ongoing that Persaud, who was reportedly imbibing
nearby, arrived on the scene and attempted to take the rope that was
attached to the fiery boat and tried to pull it farther away from the docks.
In doing so, he reportedly fell into the water and got pulled away by the
strong draft of the falling tide.

Fisherfolk on the scene tried frantically to locate him but had great difficulty since the gasoline caught afire and was floating on top of the water while the other boats were moving as their anchors were up.
Eventually, approximately two and a half hours later they managed to locate his body some 300 feet away from where he went down.

“When we find he body, it moved towards the seaside because the tide pull he way, but he body de fresh and he de bleeding from he ears and nose,” Nezam said, noting that the man was rushed to the Skeldon Hospital where he was
pronounced dead on arrival.

According to Persaud’s wife,Bibi Farida Aaron, 43, her husband who returned from sea about a week ago left early that morning to seek a job until his next trip,so as to assist in purchasing grocery and to send two of their four children to school.

“He left to go see wan job early this morning and around one ‘O’ clock me
get wan phone call seh wan boat ketch a fire and Geer bin a help out
the fire and he drown in the channel and them nah find he body.”

Aaron said she was told that her husband hit his head on one of the boats when he fell into the water, and drowned as a result. This, she said, was
confirmed by a doctor at the Skeldon Hospital.