A distraught father is demanding the immediate and permanent closure of the popular “Hot Pot” site, Brighton, St Michael, after a weekend drowning.
Leroy Kennedy Johnson, a 61-year-old, drowned last Saturday after diving into treacherous waters to save a group of unsupervised boys.
The tragedy is a grim replay of July 21, 1997. On that day, Anthony Goodman drowned while saving children caught in similar currents. Along with Goodman, four boys – Justin Power, Jamal Broomes, and brothers Kevin and Kenny Cumberbatch – perished.
The bodies of the Cumberbatch brothers have never been recovered. The boys, some of who were members of the St Leonard’s Boys’ Secondary School football team, were at the beach training when the unfortunate incident occurred.
Last Saturday’s incident began around 2 p.m. when five boys, aged 12 to 14, entered the water alone. Lionel Hinkson, whose 14-year-old son Omar was among the group, said that the current snatched his son while he was floating on a pallet.
“The tide come and pull he out and carry he far but he didn’t let go of the pallet or he would have drowned,” Hinkson said.
Seeing the boys in distress, Johnson sprinted into the water.
“He was trying to save the children but he ain’t even get close to Omar. He end up drowning before he could get close to my son,” Hinkson recounted. “That Hot Pot want something doing with it. They need to bar off the whole complete side where the current does pull.”
Johnson’s nephew, Nathan Wiles, later pieced together the fatal timeline from a witness who was on the scene.
“He said that a group of youngsters came into distress and my uncle instantly tried to save the boy who was being swept out. In the process of him trying to save the boy, I guess he lost strength or the power to come back up,” Nathan said.
It was estimated that the nearest lifeguard hut was roughly a mile away.
“The man said he ran across to the lifeguard hut . . . So by the time he get there, my uncle then would have been under at least about 15 to 20 minutes,” Nathan said.
Two tourists managed to pull both Omar and Johnson to shore, it was reported. A female visitor performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until the lifeguard arrived and took over, but Johnson was pronounced dead after being transported to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by ambulance.
For four agonising days, Johnson’s family searched for him, unaware that police had published a notice seeking answers about an unidentified man pulled from the water. The nightmare ended on Wednesday when they spotted his truck parked near the Hot Pot.
“I know he loved the beach . . . but I didn’t know . . . . We didn’t know . . . ,” his sister, Lorraine Johnson-Wiles sobbed, as her voice trailed off.
Now, the family is left mourning a man they say lived entirely to serve others.
“He lived to give, he lived to help, he was a child of God . . . . He was passionate about God, passionate about sharing Christ and he died as he lived,” Lorraine cried while she and other family members gathered at her brother’s Lowlands, Christ Church home yesterday.
Holding back tears, Nathan described his uncle as his mother’s anchor.
“They were very close. She was his best friend. He was her heart of strength. He did for people out of the kindness of his heart. He never looked for a reward,” Nathan said.
Johnson was the highly respected personal accountant for the family of prominent businessman The Most Honourable Ralph “Bizzy” Williams, having worked exclusively at Williams Industries since 1980.
“This has hit us very hard. We couldn’t find him for days because he signed a lot of the cheques for the companies,” Williams said.
“I was told yesterday somebody discovered his truck by the Hot Pot at Brandons and from there the story emerged.”
Williams remembered a deeply valued employee. “At the time of his death he was the personal accountant for my family. Leroy was a man always ready to help anybody and he had an incredible brain that absorbed everything like a vacuum,” Williams said. (MB)