A six-member Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard crew followed cries for help through darkness and rough seas to rescue 26 survivors of the MV Barima tragedy, pulling men, women and children to safety as some clung to wooden pallets, oil containers and life jackets.
Petty Officer Jeromey Agard, commander of GDFS 1034, recounted the nighttime rescue on Monday before the five-member Presidential Commission of Inquiry (COI), describing how his crew used a searchlight to find survivors and reduced engine noise to listen for people still in the water.
“With that, we would be able to hear people screaming in the water,” he testified.
The crew used life rings and ropes to bring survivors alongside the vessel, then pulled them aboard from the stern. By approximately 5 a.m. on July 19, they had recovered 26 survivors.
Agard said his six-member team was alerted shortly after 11 p.m. on July 18 and subsequently deployed to assist with search-and-rescue operations following the sinking.
They reached the search area shortly after 3 a.m., joining another Coast Guard vessel that was already recovering survivors.
With people still in the dark, rough water, Agard’s crew slowed the vessel and searched for signs of life, using both the searchlight and survivors’ calls to guide their efforts.
Survivors were scattered in small groups, some relying on makeshift flotation objects to stay afloat.
“The first group, I believe, they were holding on to like a wooden pallet or something,” Agard told the Commission.
Others were holding on to oil containers and life jackets. Asked whether any of the 26 people his crew rescued had been wearing a life jacket, Agard said none had.
After bringing the survivors aboard, the crew transferred them to a pilot vessel and continued searching the surrounding waters. No additional survivors were recovered during that phase of the operation.
Commissioners also examined how information about the rescues had been recorded.
Agard said his team had not maintained an onboard log documenting survivors’ names, the number recovered or the coordinates where they were found.
He further testified that a mobile phone on which he had received a live location during the operation was subsequently damaged, leaving him without those records.