Paul Seenanand, a 64-year-old gold miner of Port Kaituma who was believed to have perished on the MV Barima, when it capsized on Saturday July 18, is alive and well.
Seenanand had told his relatives that he was planning to travel on the vessel on that fateful day to go back to his mines.
He had also promised his son that he would visit him at his East Bank Essequibo home the day before to see his grandson. He never showed up and calls to his phone went unanswered.
His niece, Beverly Lawrence told Kiskadee Watch that he later explained to them that the day before the catastrophe, he met a friend who was going to a mine in the Bartica area by speedboat and decided to go with him instead.
Relatives are relieved that he made that decision and was not actually a part of that horrific catastrophe, as they had believed.
When news of the tragedy started to spread and he was not among the survivors, they feared the worst. They were bracing themselves for the news of his demise.
Lawrence even travelled to the Suddie Hospital Mortuary in an attempt to identify his remains.
She told the staff that none of the bodies was his.
They told her to keep checking because more bodies were expected to arrive.
In a desperate effort to confirm whether he was on the boat, she even began showing some of the survivors his photo and asked if they recalled seeing him.
The survivors were also at the mortuary at the time trying to identify the remains of their missing relatives.
At one point, a woman told her she believed she saw him on the boat. It turned out that she had mistaken Percy France for him.
France, who was accompanied by relatives to take the body of his deceased wife to Port Kaituma for burial, did not survive the disaster. Some of his relatives did not make it out alive as well.
It was not until after the news of Seenanand being missing was circulated, that he made contact with his relatives.
Lawerence said someone showed him the reports in the media and told him to call his relatives because they were worried about him. He immediately got in touch with them and started crying.
He told them that he was safe and apologized for not contacting them sooner. The area where he was had weak phone signals.
The man told his relatives too that he was not even aware that the boat had capsized and that so many people had lost their lives.
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