Easter miracle!

If not for divine intervention, five-year-old Domanique would not be alive today. A starkly sobering fact his mother Davianne McDermott is quite cognisant of.

Also not lost on her is God sending three teenage heroes to rescue her son from drowning during Holy Week. To her, what transpired is her family's “Easter Miracle”.

Some time during sports day on Tuesday at his Cross Primary and Infant School in Clarendon, Domanique wandered off.

Not long after, the five-year-old was seen floating unconscious and not breathing in a “fish pond” reportedly on the school premises. One of the three teenage boys immediately jumped into the murky water, while the other two formed a chain link to pull them out. Placing him on the ground, they used instincts to pump the child back to consciousness.

“They are my heroes,” the grateful mother declared to The Sunday Gleaner on Holy Thursday, as she hugged her son tight, tears in her eyes.

Tyrese Wright, 17; Roshane Roberts, 15; and Kenroy McKenzie, 17, all residents of Palmers Cross, stood close by, their heads bowed at the emotional scene that unfolded.

Looking at them, she said her family is forever indebted to these boys who, although they were strangers to her son, came to his rescue without hesitation. Without their heroic act there would be a “hole” in her heart that she could never mend.

THAT FATEFUL DAY

The mother explained to The Sunday Gleaner that Tuesday was like any other school morning, save for the fact that Domanique was excited about it being sports day.

She got her son and his twin sisters ready and had them dropped off at the school before heading to work.

Hours later she received the most shocking news.

“In the evening about after three/four, I got a sudden call of tragedy,” relayed a teary-eyed McDermott.

“They [school authorities] asked if I'm Domanique's mother, and they told me there was an accident. I asked them what it was, and they told me 'I can't tell you, you just have to be at the hospital'.”

The mother left work in a frenzy, quickly grabbed a taxi, and went to the May Pen Hospital where her son was taken. There she said she saw several school administrators milling around, and her son sprawled on a bed half-conscious in the Accident and Emergency room.

She was told what transpired.

Domanique was admitted to the hospital and treated for what the doctors said were “submersion injuries”. He was released on Thursday.

On Thursday evening, with bandages affixed to his arm, McDermott took Domanique to Palmers Cross to meet his rescuers and thanked them profoundly for their efforts.

“I owe everything to these boys that saved my son. They changed my life and his story,” said a teary-eyed McDermott.

“They told me how one man looking on shouted out 'that dead already, man. Dat dead already!' And the youth dem still decided that they were going for him. I don't have the words to thank them.”

GOD LED THEM

TO THE SCHOOL

As Kenroy McKenzie hugged and hoisted the young survivor from a vehicle, he marvelled at how weighty the child was.

It was the first time seeing the boy since he was whisked off to hospital on Tuesday and he and his friends were wondering if he would make it.

In the pond, Domanique was much lighter, McKenzie remarked, attributing his strength during the rescue to adrenaline, anxiety, and fear.

McKenzie and Roberts do not attend school – one stopped going two years ago because of distance and finances and the other was expelled from another institution for having contraband. Wright is on Easter holiday break. All three friends believe it was God who led them to the school, not just to watch the races and the sports day festivities.

As they were walking along the property, they recounted how Roberts spotted the five-year-old child floating in the pond. McKenzie then jumped in to rescue him. All three of them formed a human chain to get him out, all the time shouting for help.

But that's only half the story, they said, recalling their fight against time, tears and trauma to pump the boy's chest and remove some food blocking his throat, desperate for a sign of life.

“When we walked around there we saw him floating and we started to shout for help. Likkle after that a man came around and was saying 'him dead', and we said 'him nuh dead', and that's when my friend jumped into the water,” explained Wright.

“When I was in the water I was looking at him wondering if he was dead, and then I saw him make a little move,” interjected McKenzie, recalling how he then lifted the boy in the air and made the slippery dash back to the bank, with the help of the human chain formed by his two friends, pulling them to safety.

“We put him on the ground and started to pump him. Me pump, him (Wright) pump, and nothing nah happen. Eye water come a me eye,” the emotional 17-year-old told The Sunday Gleaner.

None of them had any cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training, they said.

“It was just pure food that was coming out of his mouth,” said Wright, adding that soon after a fourth youngster joined the rescue efforts.

He pumped harder, administered 'mouth-to-mouth', and that's when Domanique vomited up more food and opened his eyes.

“His belly was full of water and it was like he wasn't hearing anything, he was only seeing you. He was still shutting down even when he was in the car going to hospital,” said Wright.

I don't really call myself a hero. I'm just glad that the likkle youth is alive.”

All three boys said they hope to join the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) one day to serve their country.

MOTHER FELT BETRAYED

As the boys shared with The Sunday Gleaner on Thursday evening, McDermott stared blankly into space.

A former head girl at the school in 2008 when it was named Cross Primary and Junior High, she said she felt betrayed not only by the lack of protection of her son but also by what she saw as a lack of compassion from administrators.

She said she owes it to her son to take the matter to court and is now contemplating legal action against the school.

“Words cannot explain. I try to block it out and not process it because it will get to me. No mother wants to put their child in danger and to hear that this has happened to a parent who entrusts their child in the care of a school, of teachers, principals ... and for me to get that call like that ... I don't think I have the words,” McDermott stressed, noting that there was no pond at the school when she was a student.

'HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER?'

The Sunday Gleaner visited the school on Thursday and made several attempts to get a response from school officials, but to no avail.

Calls to a cellular number said to be that of the principal of the school went unanswered. And when another number was called, a woman who confirmed herself as being the bursar at the school declined to provide any assistance.

“How did you get my number? I have no comments and I am not going to give you the principal's number,” she curtly told this reporter before hanging up.

Several calls to her phone went unanswered after that.

A teacher seen leaving the school compound also declined to comment, promising to reach out to administrators and contact The Sunday Gleaner.

The news team was also denied access to visit the area where the pond is located, but we were provided with videos and photographs of the murky green pond in which the child was found.

There appears to be an aged fence near the pond but the teenage rescuers pointed to an opening through which Domanique may have entered.

It is unclear the purpose of the pond and its exact location in proximity to the school, and what security measures are in place to prevent what happened to Domanique. This newspaper was also unable to ascertain whether there were similar incidents in the past.

RESPONSIBILITY OF SCHOOL

Domanique's parents are questioning the responsibility of the school and teachers in caring for youngsters in their charge while on the compound, including during special activities such as sports day.

How could their five-year-old son have wandered off without anyone realising it, they are querying. Who supervises the children at events such as this when parents are not present, they further asked.

Collin Steer, director of corporate communication at the Ministry of Education and Youth, told The Sunday Gleaner on the weekend that he was aware that an incident report was being prepared on the matter but he was yet to see details of its contents.

Yesterday, Stewart Jacobs, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), said he was also aware of the incident but he had not received a full report from that arm of the association because of the holidays.

Jacobs, thankful that Domanique had survived that near-death experience, emphasised the responsibility of schools to protect their students, and pledged resources to console the boy's parents and to immediately rectify the open body of water at the location.

“The school has a responsibility to protect the children from all dangers, which includes infiltration of people getting on to the premises, and also the physical plant should be children-safe. If there is an open body of water, it doesn't matter if it's on the premises or near the premises, it should be covered or fortified so as to protect children from going into it,” Jacobs told The Sunday Gleaner.

NPTAJ's past president, Mitzie Harris-Dillion, offered that, “The sports day would be part of the school curriculum. Even if you invite parents, you don't pass on the responsibility to parents unless there is some kind of assignment, and even if parents volunteer, they would still be obligated to report any incident to the school.”

OCCUPIER'S LIABILITY

AND NEGLIGENCE

Attorney-at-law Shauna Gay Mitchell told The Sunday Gleaner that there may be a case against the public school with regard to breaches of the occupier's liability and negligence.

“You have a duty of care to make sure that children in your care area are properly supervised, so the issue of negligence may arise in this case. And secondly, if you have an open body of water, there must be a fence or something to prevent a child from going in. So you have issues of occupiers' liability coming up as well,” reasoned Mitchell, head of Shauna Gay Mitchell and Associates.

There are several long-term complications that may arise from “submersion injuries”, doctors say, but for now, except for jumping out of his sleep at nights, McDermott said her son was showing no odd behaviour.

“They (doctors) didn't give me any follow-up treatment (dates) but you know that if anything happens I'm going right back down there!” she declared.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com