Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The old­er sis­ter of 19-year-old Justin Thomas has ac­cept­ed the fact that he drowned on Sun­day at Sobo Beach in Pa­lo Seco.

But, she is now pray­ing that his body is found so his fam­i­ly can get clo­sure.

“I know he did not make it. I looked for my broth­er whole day and night. I just want clo­sure and for us to get the body,” lament­ed 29-year-old Camille Thomas.

Short­ly be­fore 11 am, Con­sta­bles Johnit­ty and Sam­my re­spond­ed to a re­port of a drown­ing at Sobo Beach.

Eye­wit­ness­es told po­lice that Justin was swim­ming with friends when they en­coun­tered strong cur­rents.

His friends be­gan swim­ming to shore and alert­ed him to turn around.

Justin was about 400 me­tres away from shore when he be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and dis­ap­peared un­der­wa­ter.

Thomas said her broth­er, the youngest of five sib­lings, went to the beach with his friends. He knew how to swim and was ac­cus­tomed to vis­it­ing that beach. About an hour and a half lat­er, she re­ceived the news that he was “float­ing away” in the sea.

She said his friends used con­tain­ers as floaters and tied a rope to a tree to try to ven­ture back in­to the wa­ter to res­cue him, but the cur­rent was too strong.

Thomas said it was the first time they had ex­pe­ri­enced such a strong cur­rent.

“Yes­ter­day that wa­ter did not look right at all. It was weird. The waves were crash­ing in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. I heard peo­ple say it had a rip cur­rent. The cur­rent was very strong,” she said.

She said they walked for miles along the shore­line from Pa­lo Seco to Erin on Sun­day search­ing for signs of his body.

While the Coast Guard was con­tact­ed by the po­lice on Sun­day, she said she did not see any ves­sel.

“This is so sad. I ac­cept the fact that he gone, but we want to find him. I don’t think we got boat search­es on Sun­day.”

Thomas said her moth­er had not ac­cept­ed that he had died.

“She said she is hope­ful that he grabbed on­to some­thing and was able to float. But they sent up the drones yes­ter­day and did not see him. We are check­ing the whole coast­line. You nev­er know where the cur­rent will take him,” Thomas said.

Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team said they re­spond­ed on Sun­day and were re­turn­ing yes­ter­day to as­sist in the search.