Latest update April 4th, 2025 6:13 AM
Teen drowns in Land of Canaan canal
…post mortem to be performed tomorrow
A Post Mortem examination (PME) is to be conducted on the body of Shawn Denzil Atkinson, who reportedly drowned last Friday after plunging into a canal at Land of Canaan, East Bank of Demerara.
Atkinson, 18, of Fire Station Area, Timehri, East Bank Demerara, reportedly disappeared for several hours below the muddy waters of the canal, which is located behind the Barama Manufacturing Complex at Land of Canaan. He had reportedly plunged into it in search of a cricket ball.
Shawn Atkinson
Malinda Sutherland, the dead teen’s mother, related that she received the devastating news moments after the incident took place.
She described her loss as “heart wrenching.”
“It left the whole family grieving because we really didn’t expect this to happen. My son left home the morning, all he said was that he was going to work and afterwards participate in a fun day with his workmates,” the grieving mother said yesterday.
However despite the reports she received from several persons with regards to the circumstances which led to her son’s demise, Sutherland says that she is still baffled.
“I still can’t believe some of things I heard because my son can’t swim. I heard so many different stories that it’s confusing. I don’t know what to believe except that my son would not plunge into a canal,” the woman stated.
Sutherland told Kaieteur News that she learnt from one young man that someone had jumped after her son in an effort to rescue him but the lad could not have been saved because he “started to fight up.”
“It was as if the person was afraid that both of them would have drowned,” the woman lamented.
Sutherland claimed that she later heard that no one tried to save her son.
“Me aint know what to think because I hearing that it was a while before the excavator that they used to clear the canal arrive…The coast guard had to help… but when they pull up he (Atkinson) body it looked suspicious but the police examine the body and didn’t find any marks of violence.”
The mother of five has not ruled out the possibility of foul play. She is awaiting the results of an autopsy, which is scheduled to take place tomorrow.
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