HGP Nightly News – Jason DeCourte cannot shake the image. His daughter and son, nine and ten years old, lying motionless. His own mother trying desperately to wrap them, to hold them, to undo what could not be undone.
It was supposed to be a day of colour and joy. Phagwah. A time when children ask permission to go outside and play, and parents say yes.
“The last I recollect, they asked their mother for permission to go play outside,” DeCourte said, his voice carrying the weight of a man still trapped in disbelief. “Especially since it was Phagwah.”
His wife agreed. The children would go play. They would be fine. It was just outside.
DeCourte stayed behind to finish chores around the yard. When he was done, he decided to ride to Buxton, where Phagwah festivities were underway. He circled around, spent some time away, comfortable in the knowledge that the children were with their mother.
When he returned to where the family was supposed to be, something felt wrong. The mother wasn’t there. The children weren’t there.
He rode home, hoping they had returned. The house was empty. But in the distance, he saw people running toward the backfield. He got on his motorcycle and followed.
What he found will never leave him.
“I see my daughter and son motionless in my mother hand, and she tried to wrap them,” he said, his words catching in his throat.
The children were already out of the water. Bystanders had pulled them from the trench behind the Guyana Water Incorporated pump station at Enterprise—a location DeCourte says neither he nor their mother had any idea they would go to. How they ended up there, what drew them to that specific spot, remains a haunting question.
The ambulance arrived about five minutes after he did. The medical team ran toward the children, desperate to save them. But there was nothing anyone could do.
DeCourte couldn’t bring himself to look closely at what the responders were seeing. “It’s something I couldn’t take, you know, look at,” he said quietly. “I can’t stand up. I can’t look at it. I can’t take it.”
Now he sits in a home that still holds his three other children, trying to process an unimaginable loss. Nine-year-old Tiana, he noted, would have turned ten later this month. Ten-year-old Jadan just celebrated his birthday last month.
