Distraught dad traumatised by daughter’s drowning

Christopher Smikle raked his yard quietly, trying to escape the harsh reality that his 14-year-old daughter, who drowned last week, is not coming back.

Ali-Kay Smikle and her 10-year-old niece Kiwana Ricketts were swept away by water in a gully at the back of their house in Jobs Hill, St Mary, last Thursday. Their bodies have since been found. The gully had been inundated following three days of heavy rain. Since the loss of the two girls, Smikle said that it feels as if his entire world has crashed. He said that on the fateful day, while he was at work in St Andrew, he received a phone call from home, informing him that his daughter had been washed away in the gully. However, he did not believe it.

"Mi say mi call dem inna di morning enuh and say rain a fall, unno avoid the gully. Anybody call unno outta di yard tell dem say unno naah go. Tell dem say unno fada say unno nuh fi leave outta di house. Dat a say to them. A true dem nuh have no madda, a mi di deh fi dem. But thru mi affi out deh a work, a mi a de breadbasket fi all a dem," he said. "Mi can't eat and mi can't sleep. From [last] Thursday till now, a last night [Wednesday] mi put something a mi mouth."

The girls were reportedly with an older relative who was doing her laundry. She also warned the girls from venturing into the gully.

Dionne Jackson, Smikle's spouse, said that Ali-Kay lost her mother some time ago and that her twin sister was also down by the gully when the incident happened.

"It was three a dem and two wash away and the other likkle one run. Is only God himself save the other one. When we come up and saw di crowd right there [at the house] and the police were there, I knew something was wrong. The morning after, we start the journey from Toms River, and the team that my daughter was with find the first girl [Kiwana]. Then they made a false alarm say they had found the other girl at Castleton," she said.

According to Jackson, the police, soldiers, residents, and Member of Parliament for South East St Mary, Dr Norman Dunn, launched an intense search for Ali-Kay, although by then any hope of finding her alive had waned. She pointed out that the real community spirit was evident. Meanwhile, the family is appealing for financial assistance to lay the girls to rest.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the funeral expenses may call Dionne Jackson at 1876-368-6362 and Christopher Smikle at 1876-438-15.