'I TRY MY BEST TO SAVE HER'

CCNTV6

One of the first people to jump into the Oropouche River on Monday night, hoping to save the female driver who drove off a bridge, is a young Venezuelan woman.  We went looking for her today.  Speaking with our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh near the crash site, the woman gave a first-hand account of what happened and relayed a message to the crash victim’s family.

Transcript

00:00When 23-year-old Venezuelan migrant Lirianes Longar went into the swollen South Oropuch River

00:07on Monday night, the only thing going through her mind, she says, was saving the occupants

00:13of a car that ran off the Buncee-Debe-Trace Bridge into the water below. She recalls

00:18having dinner with friends that night in her nearby apartment when they heard a loud crash.

00:23We start to walk fast in the road and we're going to see a face in the river. So when we go in the

00:30river, we see the car was flushing and was turning so, so, so, so. The Venezuelan woman began calling

00:40out for help and while people came out, Longar says no one wanted to go in the water. Everybody was

00:47just standing and laughing and they don't want to go in the river, they don't say they don't swim,

00:54they don't know how to go and I want to go but I know how nobody how to go because I don't want to go

01:00alone. I called she was born and she was born tell me he come in. So he come in and me and he when we

01:08go to see our body car, the girl was still living. She says two or three Trinidadian men joined in

01:14shortly after. Finding the submerged car was the first obstacle. We went in the river. When we went

01:22in the river, no, then can't find the, the car. So I was standing in the car and say where it's right

01:28here, the car is right here. So when I was standing in the car, I hear like two times like she hit the

01:34car two times and then I don't hear nothing else. We see how she was living and how she died.

01:41And I take the hammer. She go on and look for the hammer and I break the two glass,

01:46but she husband break the glass in the back too. And we, we was break the glass in the back. But I

01:53try to go inside the car. I try, I try, I try the best to go inside. I try, but I know fine. And she,

02:00I know fine. No, I know fine. No, but she, baby, she was like, don't lie in the back seat.

02:05Longau says after 30 to 45 minutes of trying, she realized there was nothing more she could do,

02:14given the poor visibility on the water and strong current of the river. It's an experience,

02:20she says, that has left them all shaken, unable to properly eat or sleep since.

02:26I feel very sorry because, because we have had, we have feelings. We, Benny, yeah. But not all,

02:38everybody Benny is bad, like all people talking about it. It's feeling very hot because we as normal,

02:47everybody similar, just a difference. Benny, Trini, Chinese, African people, Colombian people,

02:55all that we have seen. We just come from Jesus. Longau believes if other onlookers had assisted,

03:02the minute the car fell in, the driver might still be alive. Similarly, if emergency responders got

03:08there sooner. That night, 29-year-old Separia mother of one, Kalisa Danclair, was returning home

03:16when she crashed into the river. She died still trapped inside the submerged vehicle.

03:22On Wednesday, Longau told TV6 News, if she could speak to Danclair's family, she would tell them how

03:28sorry she is that they weren't able to rescue Danclair in time and return her life to them.

03:36Cindy Raguma Tika Singh, TV6 News.

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