00:01Trauma doesn't always look the same.
00:04Sometimes it brings tears, sometimes silence, sometimes even laughter.
00:09After the attempted coup, these three survivors still carry that day with them.
00:15At 6 p.m. this afternoon, the government of Trinidad and Tobago was overthrown.
00:24The prime minister and members of the cabinet are under arrest.
00:29We are asking everybody to remain calm.
00:32It began like any other day, people leaving home heading to work
00:37and one heading to a first-time opportunity,
00:40not knowing that before the day was over, their lives would be changed forever.
00:45So I woke up and it was a normal day.
00:49Oh, it was a day like any other day in the newsroom.
00:52We were busy compiling the stories.
00:54I was excited because I was going to the parliament for the first time
00:58to witness how our parliamentarians operate.
01:04Wendell Eversley was just a young 20-year-old man heading to parliament when it all happened.
01:10Richard Purcell was at TTT when the attempted coup unfolded.
01:14So was Dominic Alipassad.
01:16Both were among those held hostage inside the station.
01:20And while the country watched events unfold from the outside,
01:24they were living through a reality that was far more personal.
01:27Same day, same event, but a totally different experience.
01:33When I went to the parliament, it was a free fall.
01:38There was no police.
01:39I was asked to do credits for his awards program which we were recording.
01:45Well, we were about to record.
01:48And so I was sitting there and one of the cameramen came in from the studio
01:54and told the director that there's a man in the lobby with a gun
01:59and everybody's on the floor.
02:02Now he could look into the lobby from the studio and nobody took him seriously.
02:09So the director sent him back to the studio and said,
02:12look, you're not ready to record the program and so on.
02:14And did he take time?
02:17Well, sort of.
02:18But you know, he was always a sort of prankster kind of guy.
02:22But then when he came back in the second time, I took him seriously.
02:26I'm like, okay.
02:28Although the director sent him back.
02:29I immediately got up and I went to what I had identified before as a safe room.
02:35But I wasn't thinking about an all-out attack like that.
02:38I was thinking if somebody came in with a gun and wanted to go on the air,
02:42you know, to make a statement or something like that,
02:44yeah, I said I would just hide out until it was over.
02:48Little did I know.
02:49And very interestingly, when I came out into the technical area,
02:53there was this guy, maybe about 30 years old, playing close.
02:56I thought it was a policeman, playing close.
03:00But I noticed he had a little thing on his head, so he was Muslim.
03:05And he was just looking in awe at all our wonderful equipment, you know.
03:10And I'm like, what's going on?
03:11And he was so calm.
03:12He said, yeah, don't worry.
03:14It's just a coup.
03:15We take over the country.
03:16I think we were in the newsroom, which was in a building adjacent to the main TTT building on the
03:25same compound.
03:28One did hear a bit of a ruckus, but we were too busy, as far as I can recall,
03:34getting this newscast together, which would have been about an hour or so away,
03:40that we didn't really pay more attention.
03:43So the newsroom were not aware that something was up until gunmen entered the studio.
03:50Well, as any human being, one would have been startled.
03:53I didn't think one had much time to react as much as do what they said.
04:00Of course, one was scared, one was startled.
04:03There were guns you'd never seen before.
04:06I'd never seen a gun before.
04:08And I think they herded us off to a corner somewhere on the ground.
04:14And that's where we stood, and still we didn't know who they were.
04:18They were just gunmen.
04:20They didn't identify themselves.
04:22Well, after some time passed, we were all herded out of that building into the studio.
04:28And in the corridor approaching the studio, we saw Abu Bakr,
04:33and then we realized what was going on.
04:36While gunmen stormed TTT, another attack was unfolding just minutes away at the Red House.
04:42I remember that Joseph Toney was speaking, and he used a famous word,
04:50who is your leader?
04:52And then we hear another attack, attack, attack, like a cap's gun.
04:56And then I thought it was firecrackers, not knowing that it was actually men running into the parliament
05:04and busting in the door shooting up in the ambulance.
05:07Who is your leader?
05:08No, no, who is your leader?
05:08Ray Robinson, Ray Robinson.
05:10And at this point, can you imagine what was going through their thoughts?
05:15That was the most horrifying day in my life.
05:21And what did you do?
05:22I went underneath a chair, and people were stamping on top of me.
05:26And it was a whole commercial.
05:28I just started to shake, you know.
05:31I was no hero.
05:34I was like everybody else, really, just scared, you know.
05:40And I was still concerned that I would not meet the deadline for the news program.
05:55For years, the public has heard the broad outlines of what happened on July 27th.
06:00But what about the details that never made it into the headlines?
06:04The moments that those inside remember, and that the rest of the country never knew about?
06:09They brought in a box, this guy with clubs and so on, very carefully brought in a box and put
06:16inside of us.
06:17We couldn't get it because they had a burglar-proof door separating the two areas.
06:24So we put it on the other side and so on and started to run wires from this box and
06:29so on.
06:29And we were told it was explosives and that the army had surrounded the place,
06:35and if the army had attacked, they would have blown us up.
06:37Well, you didn't see the staff at TTT sitting around a box that we were told was a bomb.
06:49You didn't see when Jones P. Madera came to me while we were sitting in the room with a bomb,
06:59that the offer had been made to exchange me for food.
07:06You would not have seen my surprise and unexpected response where I said I would not leave unless everyone leaves,
07:16and then immediately grabbed their colleagues sharply and started to pray right away.
07:21You would not have seen an instance where while there were gunshots coming through the glass panes along a corridor,
07:36Abu Bakr walked chest high along the corridor, was not struck by a bullet,
07:45and so impressed as the young followers who said, you see, that's why we follow him.
07:51But their memories of that day are not defined only by fear.
07:56They also remember the people who held them hostage.
07:59Some were aggressive, others, they say, were unexpectedly kind.
08:05In part two of the 1990 coup untold stories, we explore the emotional scars, the lasting trauma,
08:12and how survivors have spent decades trying to heal.
08:16Rochelle Edwards, TV6 News.
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08:19You
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