“All yuh doh worry, God is good and go get we through this”, were the words of one of the LMCS divers’ moments after being sucked into a 3-inch pipeline where four of them died in February of this year.
For the first time since the deaths of Four LMCS divers, video and audio have been made public regarding the moment the five divers were sucked into an underwater pipeline on the afternoon of February 25th 2022.
• The video and audio clip was played by the lead attorney for the Commission Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, earlier today, during an evidentiary hearing by the Commission of Enquiry (CoE) into the incident, in which the divers were speaking with one another and crafting a plan to get out of the 30-inch pipeline they had been sucked into.
• Kazim Ali Jr, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry, Rishi Nagassar and Christopher Boodram, all divers with LMCS, were doing routine maintenance on the pipeline when they were sucked into it. Only Boodram survived.
• According to Senior Counsel Maharaj, Boodram was rescued, between 4.30 and 4.45 pm, by divers Ronald Ramoutar and Corey Crawford, and he indicated to them that the other divers were still alive and that Kurban was right behind him in the pipeline.
• “The four other divers remained alive in the underwater pipeline, and they were not rescued,” Maharaj said, adding that LMCS and Paria gave evidence of efforts to rescue the four divers before and after Boodram was rescued.
• The bodies of Ali, Henry and Kurban were recovered on February 28. Nagassar’s body was recovered on March 2.
• According to the 6-minute and 55 seconds clip Maharaj played, the divers were heard checking in on each other after they were sucked into the chamber.
• Statements like: “All ah we in this together, we hadda go, we hadda start moving”, were made by the divers who were never rescued by Paria. One of the divers, identified as Henry, even complained his foot was broken.
Maharaj added that based on the evidence, the four divers were alive inside the pipeline between February 25th and February 28.
let me take you back to Sunday 28th February 2022:
CHAIRMAN OF PARIA FUEL TRADING COMPANY LIMITED NEWMAN GEORGE AT A HASTILY CALLED PRESS CONFERENCE AT THE POINT-A-PIERRE STAFF CLUB ON SUNDAY 27TH FEBRUARY, NEARLY 72 HOURS AFTER THE TRAGEDY, announced that Paria had discontinued it’s “search and rescue operations” and was embarking on an exercise to recover the bodies of the four divers.
Paria’s General Manager: There was no evidence the divers were dead before a recovery mission was launched:
Also at the same press briefing, Paria’s General Manager Mushtaq Mohammed could not say when it was determined that the men were deceased but based on expert advice the likelihood the men were alive was slim while there was an extremely high risk of sending persons into the pipeline to rescue the divers.
• Pressed further on if there was any evidence which suggests the divers were deceased at the time Paria was seeking to embark on a mission to recover their bodies, Mohammed said no, there was no evidence which suggests the divers were deceased.
Post-mortem examinations on the bodies of the dead divers were done by two forensic pathologists.
• Referring to the report done by Prof. Hubert Daisley, Maharaj said, Ali “could have been alive as late as midnight on February 26.”
• Kurban may have been alive up to 6 pm on February 26 while Henry may have been alive up to the early hours of the morning of February 26. Nagassar may have been alive up to midnight on February 25.
• Maharaj said a second post-mortem showed Ali, Kurban and Henry may have been alive up to midnight on February 27 and Nagassar up to midnight on February 28.
Maharaj said LMCS submitted in its evidence that Paria prevented it from implementing its rescue plan on the ground that it was unsafe.
• Paria, in its evidence, Maharaj SAID, implemented sea searches for the four divers around 5.45 pm on February 25, after being informed of Boodram’s rescue.
• CoE chairman Jerome Lynch KC expressed surprise that three hours had passed before Paria became aware that the four divers were trapped in the pipeline.
• Maharaj said evidence from the Coast Guard suggested its divers did not have the equipment necessary for commercial sea diving and could not attempt a rescue with only scuba equipment.
