-by Nakasia Logan
Family members are struggling to come to terms with the devastating loss of a couple and their unborn son.
The duo drowned at Unity Beach, East Coast Demerara on Sunday, while one was attempting to save the other who was drifting towards the ocean.
The victims have been identified as thirty-year-old construction worker Andri Francis called bobby/gooby and his reputed wife 20-year-old Lyodisa Waldron called Loyda, who was close to giving birth.
NCN News today visited the families and spoke with the mother of Francis who said initially her son was going to church in Linden but because the highway was flooded, they decided they were going along on a family outing. His mother, Imelda Francis-Haynes speaking through grief, recalled that she had always cautioned her children about being careful whenever going swimming.
“‘Mommy I is a big bai look how I big, I could swim,’ well, I could swim too and I say the best swimmer does drown, I seh be careful,” she recalled.
Through the details of her older son, who witnessed the tragedy, Imelda recounted the events that unfolded, noting that her son was sitting on the rocks after leaving the water and was watching Lyoda and her relatives, when tragedy struck.
“She had her two nieces in the water and she tek them out, dry off they skin put on their pampers and she went back into the water and the lil sister was there and like when the lil sister feel the water pulling them she get up and run out water and she drift away fast, she shouting and shouting for he. He spring fuh to fuh her and like the wave tangling she, he turn back. When he lef fuh guh guh help her the second time and he put up he hand like this Adrian help me nah and that was it,” she said.
Andri Francis’ mother said the loss is especially painful having lost a child and her unborn grandson.
“Wuh I gon do, he gone, I got to live with the pain,” she said.
Francis is the fourth of nine children.
Meanwhile the family of Loyda was also present, however they were too distressed to speak with the media. The incident serves as another stark reminder of the dangers posed by strong currents and changing tides along Guyana’s coastline.