Tour Guide Drowns in Lagoon in Gales Point Manatee Village

Benigno Betancourt

Ladyville tour guide and businessman, Benigno Betancourt, popularly known as Ben, met an untimely death on Saturday evening when he drowned while on an expedition in Gales Point Manatee Village. The forty-six-year-old had reportedly gone to spend the weekend with his family at the Manatee Lodge and went on a canoe on the lagoon. On the way back, Betancourt is said to have jumped into the water at three different intervals, but on the third jump, he did not resurface. A News Five team was in Gales Point Village for the Vulcan Consultation when the incident happened, and when we arrived at the scene, we observed from a distance a search team trying to resuscitate him. The effort, which lasted roughly half an hour, was futile. News Five spoke off-camera with Richard McKoy, one of the managers at the lodge who said the deceased had spoken to him only an hour earlier when he served him food.

Voice of: Richard McKoy

Voice of: Richard McKoy, Co-manager, Manatee Lodge

“After lunch, a couple of the guys decided that they wanted to take a swim out in the water, noh. And they came to me and asked me for some paddles for the kayak and I told them ‘yes, here are the paddles,’ gave them and explained to them there was no life guard on duty so it’s okay for them to swim but not to go too far, noh. They were on the east side of the resort, which is the front of the lodge here. I was in the kitchen when the incident happened, prepping dinner for them. His actual sister came to the kitchen and told me that they were swimming in the back and one of her brothers jumped out of the kayak and he went missing. They can’t find him. First thing I did, I grabbed my phone and called nine-one-one, asked for assistance. We got a search party, the villagers helped out and we did a search for like twenty minutes and we recovered the body after twenty minutes. It was a calm located; it’s doesn’t have strong currents but it was more than mirky so he could have made a mistake, thought it was deeper and maybe jumped in head-first or maybe got a cramp or something. I met him for lunch. He asked me for some ketchup and I gave it to him but that was the last.”