Senior citizen drowns in St James

WESTERN BUREAU:

Seventy-nine-year-old Amy Campbell has been in deep mourning after her older sister Icilda James was found dead in a pond in Dumfries, St James, following the passage of Hurricane Beryl.

“Oh my God, I tell you something, I can't even eat. I feel it, I feel it; I know she would die one day, but the way she died, I feel it,” Campbell told The Gleaner on Monday.

The badly decomposed body of James, who was in her 90s and was said to have mental challenges, was found by residents on Saturday in the local pond a few minutes away from her home in Dumfries, where she lived alone.

It is believed that James fell into a trench near her home on Wednesday evening during the passage of the hurricane and was washed out to the pond.

Campbell said that she got the devastating news of her death on Saturday, a day after another relative had gone to James' home to check on her.

“On Friday night, one of the family went and checked the house, but when him go check, him notice say the back door did open, but him nuh see her, but dem nuh make no alarm because dem did seh a nuh night-night (late night).

“A Saturday morning now we hear, and my son and my daughter and other people go and search, and all the police come up here and a search for her,” Campbell recounted. “We hear seh a young man did seh him see one body inna di pond, and dem go call the police.”

Daciann Shaw, who lives across the road from the pond, said she last saw the senior citizen passing along the roadway on Wednesday afternoon, around the time Hurricane Beryl's effects started to be felt in the area.

“While the storm was just forming, a little breeze blowing and no rain falling, she passed to go up the road. She was in a black dress, and I didn't see her back from that. That was about 4 p.m., so maybe she was going to the shop,” Shaw recounted.

“We saw the body Thursday morning, but I didn't know it was a body, because normally when rain falls and things come down from that side (the direction of James' home), a lot of garbage settle and bank up, so we thought it was just rubbish. But gradually it started swelling and it started forming like a human being,” Shaw added.

Hanover resident Kayon Sterling was previously reported to have died in Jamaica due to the effects of Hurricane Beryl, which was classified as a Category 4 storm and passed just south of Jamaica.

A St Andrew man, Alrick Moncrieffe, remains missing after being washed away by water in a drain last Wednesday.

Reflecting on James' life and character, Campbell said that she did her best to help her sister, who was the oldest of 10 siblings, whenever James came to visit.

“I don't know if it's because her head nuh right, but she always a come with some story about long-time things, all about what she do for people. Every day mi tell mi cousin say, 'Mek she come, mek she come, mi will give her anything mi have', because she nuh have any children, so if anything a we have to jump around her,” said Campbell.

Another neighbour, Tony, remembered James as a generous woman whose only issue was slight senility.

“She helped a lot of people, and in terms of any Government-issued things being given away, as long as she knows, the whole community would know. Miss Icy was a good, good woman. It's only that she was getting a little senile; she saying things to you, and by the time you say it back to her, she don't remember,” said Tony.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com