Richmond Vale student drowns at Trinity Falls

After months of training and preparation to do humanitarian work in Malawi in southeastern Africa, Garfield Ballantyne’s life came to a tragic end last Sunday while at an outing with friends at Trinity Falls.{{more}}

Though he was a strong swimmer and visited the waterfalls on a regular basis, Ballantyne met his death in what may be termed a freak accident.

SEARCHLIGHT understands that a party of seven students left the Richmond Vale Academy (RVA) compound around 1:30pm for the waterfalls, however, Ballantyne and another student, Satoko Kimijima went on ahead of the others. When the others caught up with them, Ballantyne and Kimijima were already swimming at the falls.

At around 4 pm Kimijima, who has been in the country for only three weeks, began experiencing some difficulties while swimming. According to reports, Ballantyne went in to help her and was able to push her to the rocks, where she was pulled to safety by two other students.

After assisting Kimijima, Ballantyne began experiencing difficulties himself and cried out, “Max! Max! Help me,” but he was pulled underwater by the heavy currents before his distraught friends could go to his assistance. When his friends pulled him from the water, they administered CPR and tried to revive him, but he was already dead, they said.

Ballantyne was in the final phase of training at the RVA; he was slated to leave for Malawi on August 4. He was one of two Vincentian students who had been in the programme, the other being Kelvin May who left the programme in March. Both of them were from the northeastern community of Sandy Bay.

On July 4, Ballantyne celebrated his 35th birthday. He was an auto mechanic trained by the Skills Training Division, and planned to set up his own business after his stint in Africa. He will be buried on Sunday at Sandy Bay.