Separate drownings claim two lives

Separate incidents have claimed the lives of two people who went swimming with friends over the weekend. One of the tragedies occurred around four on Easter Sunday in the Belize district.

Stephanie Smith, Mother of the Deceased
“When I gone to see him, I just can’t hold it. Dah mi wah shock, a total shock.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Eighteen year old Romero Rowan Logan was staying with friends for the long holiday weekend in Ladyville when the group decided to go swimming in a man-made lake in Lake Gardens. But the young man would not leave the water alive. He disappeared beneath the surface and by the time his friends found his body, it was too late.

Stephanie Smith says she thought her son was at the B.D.F. Camp where he is a volunteer and band member, which is why she could not believe the news that he had drowned. Smith says Logan did not know how to swim and on previous trips, had not ventured in deep water.

Stephanie Smith
“I get the understand that they seh my son said he noh going into the deep because he noh know to swim, he wah stay in the shallow part, he noh going into the deep. So the young man said three times that my son said he noh going into the deep. Anyway they say that how, somebody say that how they see my son put up his hand and he gone down. And nobody noh say nothing about it, they left right so and then the lady weh know my son say that how they want to know where my son deh and they noh know weh he deh, they di look for ah and they think he gone buy all of them deh together, a whole crowd ah them deh together and still they noh know that my son is missing.”

And one hour would pass before the victim was pulled from the water. But where Logan’s body was retrieved has left the family with more questions than answers.

Stephanie Smith
“If the water was so deep as how they said, how you will be walking, coming out and you will walk on top of him. If the water deep, how you wah walk on top of somebody underwater; that is what is really bugging me out.”

Jacqueline Godwin
“What you mean, they walked on top of him?”

Stephanie Smith
“A young man said when he di come out, he feel something, he mash something and then he say that my son was down there. But they say it deep and if it’s deep, you cannot touch the bottom, right, that dah what I can’t understand yet.”

As this family looks for answers, the police say they are investigating, but that they do not suspect foul play.

Police also do not suspect foul play in the weekend’s second drowning incident. According to San Ignacio police, around two-thirty on Friday afternoon, eleven year old Moses Huang was swimming in a pool with friends at a resort in the Central Farm area when he went under water and did not resurface. Huang was rushed to the San Ignacio hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.