Adriana Younge died by drowning almost a month ago. Since then, her death has attracted international attention. A lot has been said but not much has been done. The child has not yet been buried or cremated, depending in the wishes of the parents.
The police are still to brief the nation on the progress of the investigation. The Crime Chief has said that his department has collected all the available video evidence that have been in circulation. He also said that people have been interviewed but so far no one has been arrested.
Foreign pathologists have been invited to perform the autopsy and they have concluded that the child died by drowning. One of the pathologists said that the cause of death was never in dispute. What is in dispute is whether the child died in the swimming pool.
There was a panel discussion by a team of international experts last week and for the first time many heard of dry drowning. A simple research revealed that dry drowning, also known as secondary or delayed drowning, refers to a situation where a small amount of water is inhaled into the lungs during a near-drowning incident.
This causes delayed symptoms hours later. The water irritates the lungs, causing inflammation and fluid buildup, making it difficult to breathe.
With so-called dry drowning, also, water is inhaled through the nose and mouth causing the vocal cords to spasm and shut. This prevents air from entering the lungs. It is called “dry drowning” because the victim’s lungs do not have water in them.
This was a remarkable revelation for many. There were other revelations. The issue of a body floating after drowning was explained. The experts on the panel concluded that there must be bloating before a body can float. They actually said that it must bloat before it floats.
And it will float in a horizontal position. This was not the case in Adriana’s situation.
Many have seen movies where a person is shot and falls into a body of water. This body, in the movie, floats immediately. But this only happens in the movies.
Adriana’s body was not bloated. The local investigators should have taken this into consideration.
It could be that they were not aware of these facts. And they had been called to the scene of many drownings.
It is widely stated that they bungled the investigation.
It is therefore no surprise that the child’s parents are questioning the insistence that the child drowned in the pool. The truth may not come out. It is the same with the helicopter crash. Here rumours are floating about. It has been two years and nothing is being said about that incident.
There are other talking points. One of them involves road construction. For years the People’s National Congress proclaimed that the PPP never built a road. President Irfaan Ali must have grown up hearing this criticism.
He has been building roads like crazy. The quality of the roads is of little importance. It can no longer be said that the PPP never built roads.
United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was very critical of the road he travelled on. He called it a concussion road. Later, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that the government will recap the road.
Whatever the case, the PPP is building roads. It is also pressing ahead with other infrastructure projects. There is the construction of the new Demerara River Bridge. It may be behind schedule but it is proceeding.
The major project is the gas to energy project. The final cost has gone up astronomically but the project is continuing. Vice President Jagdeo is refusing to answer any more questions on the project which was fashioned by the coalition administration.
It is common knowledge that the PPP government is not keen to continue anything that the other side initiated. There were the national awards. There have been none since this new government took office. It was an annual affair that coincided with Guyana’s independence anniversary at one time.
When the PPP came to power in 1992 it changed the awards to October 6 to commemorate the coming to office of the PPP. But even that was brief. After a while the award ceremony disappeared from national life.
Nothing has changed. There has been no national award since 2020. That is not the only thing that has disappeared.
David Granger reintroduced the conferring of silk to deserving members of the legal profession. That too was done every year. Not anymore. The PPP is not about continuity. It is about trying its best to erase the contributions of Burnham’s party from the history of Guyana.
In every other country national events supersede political preferences. In Guyana it is about forging the history of the PPP government.
