Gloom in St Ann after children drown
LATOYA Buchanan did not send her children to school on Friday because of the heavy rain.
Her six-year-old son had asthma and she thought it best that he and a sister stayed home. However, what should have been a safe day at home turned tragic when two of Buchanan’s five children decided to play in water which settled in an opening following the downpour.
The bodies of Dana Lawrence, 11, and her brother Jason Parkes, six, were pulled from the hole by two family members who were alerted by a four-year-old boy who was playing with the children near their Minard Hill, Brown’s Town home.
Lawrence was a student at the Edgehill School of Special Education while Parkes attended the Servite Primary School.
When the Jamaica Observer visited the house that the children shared with their mother and other family members, relatives of the children cried openly. The 28-year-old mother was at a loss for words. However, her tears told the tale of someone devastated by the death of the third and fourth children.
Buchanan had left the children earlier to go to the supermarket to get food items in order to prepare a meal for them. When she returned shortly after, she came to see grieving family members and the bodies of two of her children lying lifeless in her yard.
A man identified as Tony was one of two people who pulled the bodies from the water. He said that several attempts were made to revive the children, however, it appeared that they died before they were taken from the water.
“We a pump dem chest and a blow, but dem dead,” he recalled.
Hyacinth Wray, the grandmother of the children, said that she had left them mere minutes earlier when she was informed that they had jumped into the hole filled with water.
“Mi just talk to them there. The little boy trouble wid asthma and mi say ‘Jason gwaan go put on a shirt’ and him say ‘yes grandma,” Wray recalled.
She said that shortly after entering her room and was talking to the children’s great grandmother, another child ran to her telling her the children had jumped into the hole.
“The little boy come and say ‘Aunty Blas, dem pickney jump in the tank,” Wray said, upon which she rushed to the area but did not see the children.
It was when two family members jumped into the water and started searching that the bodies were found.
“It happen in less than five minutes,” Tony said.
“Dem just loving. Dem mek noise a mi head but dem loving. Right now dem gone and the yard just come like a ghost town,” Wray stated.
Wray said that her grandchildren were active youngsters whom she could depend on.
“The little boy anywhere mi go … church anywhere … him deh behind me,” she added.
Family members said that Buchanan had been crying since the death of her children.
“She always care about her children. Rain, sun or shine she carrying them to school,” one man said.
“When a sports she buy the two colours for them,” one family member said.
Another family member said that the hole had been at their home for years. It is believed to have been an area dug out for limestone while construction was taking place. According to the family member, it was covered previously. However, layers of wood used to cover the area had since rotted, leaving it open again.
It is also usual for water to settle in the opening when it rains heavily, they said.
According to Wray, the family wanted to cover the opening which resembled a tank. However, they did not have the money to do so.
“They need help, the family really needs help. It is only sad that this have to happen to draw attention to their situation,” a neighbour said.