Funeral home workers save drowning boys

Four employees of Butty's Funeral Service in Morant Bay, St Thomas, are being lauded for saving the lives of two of the three boys who met with difficult waters at Diamond Beach in Dumfries in the parish on Saturday.

The body of the third boy, 12-year-old Oshane Crawford, was fished from the Lyssons Beach, some metres away from where he was last seen, on Sunday, following his disappearance a day before.

One of the men being hailed as a hero, Marlon Burke, told THE STAR that they had just completed a funeral and were at a nearby bar enjoying a party.

"We were there then we see a lady run come from down the beach saying something like, 'Dem a dead! Dem a dead!' She was making some gestures like she was speechless, too, but because the music loud and so we weren't really understanding what she was saying," he said. "So after we realised what she really a seh, we run past her same time and go down there. I was the first one to jump in the water. When we jump in the water, I realised I underestimated the water. We never know it suh deep, but we decide to go through."

He explained that they had initially spotted all three boys, but when they swam out to them, only two were in sight.

Burke said, "We only got to save two, and, unfortunately, the other one lost his life. It mek we just feel as if we didn't do enough. Even though we won because we saved two, we still feel as if we lost the battle because we still feel as if we should have done more. But at the end of the day, we don't really want to have that thought, but it still come in yu head."

ASSIST SEARCH

It was that same thought which encouraged Burke, who owns and operates the photography company St Thomas Events, to grab his equipment and go back to the beach on Sunday morning to assist in the search for Oshane.

"I didn't want to go while the coast guards were doing their thing, but when I heard that they ended unsuccessfully (Saturday), I decided to charge the batteries for my drone and go out," he said. "When me reach, the fishermen come and we started to search together. I was on land with the drone as my eyes and the fishermen were out at sea. We spot a lot of things on the water and we searched them out with the drone, then the boat man start signal we. When we circled the spot, we realised it was the body, and they pulled him in and carried him to shore on the boat."

The other men who assisted in the initial rescue attempt are Jermaine Hamilton, Davon Neil ,and Ferron Stewart.

A video that is being circulated, shows a somewhat debilitated Stewart carrying one of the boys to shore on his neck before lying on his back.

"When I come land, I put him down and somebody else carried him to the ambulance that was on the ground because me did feel weak. I laid flat on my back and someone told me to turn on my side because I took in a lot of water. So when I went to the hospital, they gave me an X-ray and they took out about two small Guinness buckets of water out of me. When I went home, mi couldn't sleep," Stewart said.