An 18-year old lad is now dead and another in a serious condition in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), after a misunderstanding turned violent as folks waited at the Georgetown seawall to view the Diwali motorcade on Thursday night. Dead is Dwayne Durante of 60 William Street, Kitty, who was stabbed in the neck by another lad with whom he had an old feud. The dead man’s friend, whose name was given as Trevon Barrow, rushed to his assistance, and was reportedly stabbed in the chest by the aggressor.
Durante was minutes later pronounced dead at the Accident and Emergency Unit of the GPH, while Barrow, suspected to have suffered an injury to the lung, was immediately placed on oxygen and admitted to the Unit.
The dead man’s grieving mother, Loretta Pitman, who said she learnt that the tragic incident happened around 21:30h, said she was at Church when her son left with friends for the seawall. Around 21:45h, after she had returned home, a child from the neighbourhood came running breathlessly to her home and said to her, “Yuh son just get stab on de seawalls!”
Confused, she rushed to the Georgetown Hospital. The woman said when she arrived at the hospital her son was already dead.
Her grief was worsened when she was told that people at the scene of the stabbing when called upon to help get her son to the hospital refused, saying that they did not want blood to get on their clothes and in their cars.
The family is however grateful to a man driving a pick-up who compassionately placed Durante in the vehicle and took him to the GPH.
“I feel my son would have lived if only he had reached the hospital sooner,” the woman said tearfully.
Meanwhile, another of Durante’s friends on the scene, yesterday said that after he was stabbed, as he slumped to the ground, his attacker and another young man kicked him off the seawall and the wounded man landed on a rocky surface at the edge of the beach.
The witness who reported the story said that since the spot where Durante landed was fairly dark, he asked a man with a cellular phone to assist by flashing his light so he could see the wound. But the man stoutly refused.
Explaining what led to the stabbing, the lad recounted that that Durante and friends with whom he had gone to the seawall were walking together when he was accosted by the assailant with whom he had a problem some time ago.  After a few brief words, uttered in hostility, the man whisked out a knife and lounged it towards Durante.  The teen’s friend, Trevon Barrow, spontaneously intercepted the attack in an attempt to save him, and was stabbed in the chest.
Reports said that even after Barrow was stabbed, the assailant relentlessly pursued Durante and stabbed him in the neck, and together with an accomplice, fled the scene. They were later pursued by the police who found them hiding in a house in Garnett Street.
The dead teen’s mother and neighbours at his home yesterday described him as a quiet, helpful and mannerly person.  He was employed at the Footworks Store on Camp and Charlotte Streets. The fifth of 12 siblings, he is survived by his parents, Benjamin Durante and Loretta Pitman, seven brothers and four sisters, and other relatives and friends.