One tyre between life and death

WESTERN BUREAU:

Three tyres were already hanging over the edge of a gully. A fourth, caught against a concrete kerb, was all that stood between Police Constable Horace Bryan, a terrified 75-year-old woman and the raging floodwaters threatening to sweep them into the Caribbean Sea.

Bryan prayed. He sang Christian songs until he could remember no more. And when he saw a fire truck turn back, unable to reach them through the treacherous waters, he feared he might never see his family again.

It was a scene worthy of a Hollywood disaster movie, except there were no actors, no rehearsals and no second takes.

This was Montego Bay, St James, in the terrifying aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, and the lives hanging in the balance were real.

Nearly a year later, on National Heroes Day, Monday, October 19, six policemen who risked their lives to save three people were honoured by the St James Municipal Corporation at historic Sam Sharpe Square.

But it was the account they gave shortly after receiving their awards from Montego Bay Mayor, Councillor Richard Vernon, that revealed the extraordinary courage, fear and ingenuity behind a rescue operation that could easily have ended in tragedy.

Detective Sergeant Ricardo Lattibeaudiere of the Montego Bay Criminal Investigation Branch recalled that the drama unfolded approximately two hours after the hurricane had passed.

The rain had stopped, but the floodwaters continued rising.

It was approximately 7 p.m. Electricity was out, darkness had enveloped the city, and the wind was still howling.

Along Howard Cooke Boulevard, near Martina’s restaurant and the Catherine Hall Entertainment Complex, vehicles were being swept away as floodwaters surged through the area.

Detective Corporal Ronald Bowen, attached to the Community Safety and Security Branch, was among the first to respond.

He spotted a younger man trapped in a vehicle and rushed into the water before the rest of the team could reach him.

But the motorist was reluctant to leave. He was concerned about money and other valuables inside his vehicle.

“I said, ‘Sir, not at this time,’” Bowen recalled, explaining that he had to persuade the man to abandon his possessions.

During the rescue, Bowen lost his footing in the powerful current and nearly became a victim himself.

“Luckily, I could swim. Else, I would be one of the history today,” he said.

Farther along the roadway, a 75-year-old woman had been swept from her vehicle and was desperately clinging to a white Honda CR-V.

The vehicle belonged to the motorist Bowen had just rescued.

Lattibeaudiere and his colleagues formed a human chain through water that was already shoulder-high, attempting to reach the elderly woman.

Constable Bryan was at the front.

He stretched out his hand and urged her to release her grip on the vehicle.

But she was terrified and refused.

The officers decided that Bryan should climb onto the CR-V and help her across to the waiting policemen.

No sooner had he reached her than a powerful surge of water pushed the vehicle away from the human chain.

Within seconds, the rescuer had become another person in need of rescue.

“At this point, we were about three arms’ length from the vehicle. The water was rising, rushing hard. We could not, at this point, reach them,” Lattibeaudiere recalled.

The CR-V was being pushed towards a gully directly behind the police station, its waters emptying into the sea.

Three tyres had already gone over the edge. Only one, caught against the kerb wall, prevented the vehicle from being swept into the torrent.

Bryan managed to position the woman on the bonnet and climbed up beside her.

There they remained, surrounded by swirling, debris-filled water, with no clear means of escape.

Back at the station, Lattibeaudiere and his colleagues desperately searched for equipment that could help them reach the stranded pair.

They summoned the fire brigade, but firefighters determined that the conditions were too dangerous to proceed.

The police also sought assistance from the Jamaica Defence Force, but were told that conditions were too risky for a helicopter rescue.

For Bryan, still stranded on the bonnet, the sight of the fire truck turning back was devastating.

“At one point when I saw the fire truck came and turned back, I had lost all hope,” he recalled.

He prayed and sang Christian songs, drawing on his faith as the possibility of death loomed.

Although he could swim, Bryan knew that the murky water, littered with debris and driven by a violent current, offered little chance of survival if the vehicle broke free.

He later told Lattibeaudiere that he had sung until he could remember no more Christian songs.

And as the minutes passed without his colleagues returning, he began to wonder whether they had been forced to abandon him.

But abandonment was never an option for the police sergeant.

“It’s like a burden on me at that point. I know I had to go back out there because, certainly, I couldn’t rest. It wouldn’t rest well to leave him alone,” Lattibeaudiere said.

With conventional rescue assistance unable to reach the stranded pair, the policemen were forced to improvise.

They found a fire hose near the cells at the police station, cut a length of it and returned to the floodwaters. But it was too short. They attached a piece of wire. Still too short.

Then someone suggested a long commercial broom. Constable Walter Mothersill took responsibility for stretching the broom towards the stranded pair.

“I was the one that used the broom and stretched across, gave the lady and told her to hold on to it,” Mothersill recalled.

But just as they began pulling her towards safety, another terrifying moment unfolded.

She released her grip. “And in the middle of it, she let go, and I had to dip in the water and pull her up,” Mothersill said.

Against the odds, the officers managed to bring both Bryan and the woman to safety.

Throughout the operation, Corporal Oral Johnson had been directing the rescuers with a flashlight, providing desperately needed visibility in the darkness. But even inside the station, the danger was not over.

Johnson recalled discovering that water was beginning to rise within the building itself, prompting discussions about moving everyone upstairs, including prisoners being held in the cells.

When Bryan was finally brought back into the station, his colleagues erupted in celebration.

But their relief was tempered by the realisation of just how close they had come to losing him.

“He was out of breath, literally out of breath,” one officer recalled, suggesting that another five minutes in the water might have proved fatal.

The elderly woman, meanwhile, had sustained an injury to her foot and was trembling from the cold. The officers provided her with dry clothing, but she refused medical attention.

The rescue was only one chapter in an extraordinary period of service for the policemen.

Many of the officers had worked before and during the hurricane, and remained at the station for several days afterwards because colleagues were unable to report for duty. Some were effectively stranded at work for approximately five days.

For the six officers, Monday’s recognition at Sam Sharpe Square was a moment of pride and gratitude.

Lattibeaudiere said police officers were often required to perform duties far beyond conventional law enforcement, sometimes acting as doctors, teachers and psychologists.

“Some might say it’s a part of your job. This is what you sign on to,” he acknowledged.

But he welcomed the municipality’s decision to publicly recognise their actions.

For Bryan, who had prayed and sung as the floodwaters threatened to carry him away, the experience remained a testament to faith and teamwork.

“I trust God and I trust the team, and then they delivered, and we’re here to talk about it today,” he said.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com