‘Grandma, help me!’ - Woman watches helplessly as Sandy Gully swallows her grandson

The haunting image of her grandson calling out for help before being swallowed by the rushing waters of the Sandy Gully remains etched in Althea Wright's memory.

Her grandson, 32-year-old Chad Allen, was swept away by raging floodwaters during a downpour which battered parts of the Corporate Area on Friday, triggering a rush of water through the gully.

"I was inside so I run out when I hear my name and when I look, [I saw] the water taking away my grandson," Wright, a resident of Drewsland, St Andrew, told THE STAR.

"His hands were in air and like he was saying, 'Grandma, help mi'. Honestly, if mi other grandson wasn't here, mi would jump in the water after him because a mi grand pickney dat. Some men run out and a try help but they couldn't," she recounted.

Residents say Allen was standing in the gully when the floodwaters came suddenly and washed him away. His grandmother told THE STAR that there were no indications that the gully would be flooded.

"No rain never did a fall, but it look like it was falling elsewhere and the gully just come down," she said.

Relatives are now pleading for additional help, urging the authorities to dispatch a professional search and rescue team with divers to comb dangerous sections of the gully.

"There is part of the gully where there is a deep hole and the men in Riverton are helping us because some part of the gully have crocodile, so it hard for us to go there. We just a walk and a look behind the garbage and rubble dem because down there stay bad. We are hoping that by now his body would float up, but that nuh happen," a relative told THE STAR.

"We want some help to look for him because we can't do it alone. We are doing our best but can't manage, so we begging the government to help us out," the relative added.

According to family members, the Jamaica Fire Brigade responded hours after Allen was swept away, but since then, support has been limited. Good Samaritans, some equipped with drones, have joined the search, but much of the burden has fallen on the family's shoulders.

"Mi nah go blame the fire people dem because dem come and the police come too, but we are asking for a diving team who can look in the section where there is a breakaway. Natural manpower can't do this, but we a try. We need to find his body and we are searching from Friday until now," a man said.

- S.M.L