Harold Damon, Ronald Burton, and Winston Sam, fishermen for Noble House Seafoods, were reported missing on February 19, 2022. Their seabob trawler is said to have capsized and sank some 26 miles from the Mahaica River. Vincent Dazzell is the only fisherman who survived the ordeal, rescued by a passing vessel.
Ponszabel Beckles-Damon, the wife of Harold Damon, and Claudine Welch, daughter of Ronald Burton, spoke to our affiliate podcast, ‘Below De Belt’, today, March 10, 2022. They said they learnt of the men’s disappearance and that when Noble House was contacted, it was news to the men’s workplace. Mrs. Damon had learnt of the mishap from her son, who in turn heard it from her sister-in-law. The in-law said she got a call from an unidentified male.
According to Mrs.Damon, Dazzell had, “Told each and every family different stories of how he come to be rescued, how he come to survive. She said the families of the men involved went to Noble House and “had to throw a tantrum” before anyone was willing to speak with them; had to misbehave before anyone would speak with them.”
Claudine Welch said they learnt “the boat sank” and made a report of the missing men to Agricola Police Station and, “There is where they pick up the boy who survive alone in the accident”. “We looking for our loved ones up to now and everywhere we go in a meeting, is everybody got this same message…they say they are searching for this boat.”
Welch says she is perplexed by what the lone survivor said to them. “He continue telling us a set of different things. He said I’m going to find my father but I’m not going to find the rest. And then now is different statements, different things he’s telling you. But we’re not gonna stop,” Welch told, Below De Belt.
Mrs. Damon told the publication that on the night they were heading to report the men missing to the police Dazzell engaged them and intimated that on the fateful day they were awoken aboard the ill fated trawler by her husband, the boat’s Captain, and told to check at the back of the boat to see what is going on.
“He said when he go the ice-hole was covered in water, the engine room was covered in water, the ladder was also covered in water. He told everybody to put on their life jacket and my husband told him cut down the lifeboat. Then he go on to say he and my husband was on the lifeboat and my husband came out the lifeboat and back into the sinking boat for his phone. And as soon as he went into the boat the boat flip over and went down. And his words were, “These men dead!'”
“We asked him how we survived. First he said how he was in this lifeboat and how he drink up [salt] water in his lungs and he swell up and is a small fishing boat came to his rescue. He said half of his body was already paralyzed and when the people collect him in the boat he got blackout. He said they were looking around for about an hour and they an see nothing. He said the men told him they gon do out their work and then carry him in (to shore),” Mrs. Damon said. “Now you just save a man, you gon do out your work?”
