By Sue-Ann Wayow
AFTER diver Christopher Boodram was rescued on Friday, an order was given by an official of Paria Fuel Trading Company not to return to look for his four colleagues.
This was the claim being made by Michael Kurban who was among divers who found Boodram after he and Fyzal Kurban, Rishi Nagassar, Yusuf Henry, and Kazim Ali Jr. were sucked into a 36-inch pipe that they were working on. Michael Kurban is the son of Fyzal Kurban.
The other four men have not been found and Paria stated that it was highly unlikely they will be alive.
On Sunday at a press conference held by the Citizens Union of Trinidad and Tobago in Paria’s carpark at Pointe-a-Pierre, Kurban gave details of his involvement in the operation that saw the rescue of Boodram.
The five divers were welding the pipeline at Berth #6 on Friday when they were sucked into it. Boodram crawled his way out of the line and there has been no sign of the other four.
Kurban said the incident occurred around 2 pm on Friday and he was called an hour after by his brother who said “everybody shaking on the barge and nobody knows what to do.”
He organised two of his divers and went to the rescue arriving at the site about half an hour after.
When the chamber was checked, there was no one inside, he said.
Kurban said, “The other thing is one of the divers was on top of the riser which was Christopher hanging on the pipe. He banging an hour inside, nobody to rescue him. Only when me and my divers came, we rescued him. When we rescued him, he told me, my father is right behind him, ‘go down for your father.’
“It took me about 50 minutes to organise my gear to do down on the pipe. I swam down in the pipe about 70 feet down. I did not locate him. I locate his diver duck. I tried to swim as far as I could. I did not locate him. After we came back up, we told them we did not find nobody else, so we had to try a different alternative.”
When the men arrived at the surface, an order was given to not dive again.
Hours after, a professional dive boat arrived with the commercial equipment.
“We still had time to save them guys but you know what the orders were. The orders they get was to plug the flange and block the divers from surfacing back up where we rescued the first man.”
He asked, “Why would you give an order like that and block the only entrance them fellas could surface for help?”
Kurban almost in tears said, “I told them do not block it. Let us send a commercial diver down with the proper lifeline and let we rescue them guys… we were doing the right thing.”
Paria Fuel has gotten a backlash from the public for its response to the entire situation.
