On Monday Oswaldo Francis Petillo better known as “Chino”
had only just started to celebrate his eleventh birthday when tragedy struck
the young boy and his father out at sea. The two had gone out in their 14-foot
fiber glass skiff and were fishing at the southern side of Tobacco Caye Range
when their small vessel was hit by a larger boat. What followed was a tragedy
that has left one father completely devastated. Jacqueline Godwin reports.
Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
Today the body of eleven year old Oswaldo Francis Petillo arrived at the Belize
City morgue. It was brought from the Southern Regional Hospital where the child
was rushed following a boat accident on Monday morning.
John Francis Petillo, Father
“When I got up on Monday morning my son got up and I told him happy
birthday. He hugged me and told me thanks and we went out seven o’clock
and by 8:30 to 9 my son was dead.”
According to John Francis Petillo all weekend they were fishing but he never
thought that it would end in tragedy. The father and son were in the vicinity
of Tobacco Caye Range when John says his attention was drawn to a boat that
was speeding towards their direction.
John Francis Petillo,
“I see this big boat coming from Water Caye towards Tobacco Caye Range
and this boat was far from me. I saw the boat coming but I didn’t expect
that the boat would come to hit me or otherwise I could get out of the way or
do something about it. So I saw the boat and it was close already and then my
mind told me this is for me and when I turned around, I was fishing and when
I did turn around to grab my son to jump in the water with him it was too late.
The boat threw me one side and he went clean overboard. The little boy
was on the same right hand side where the boat ran over and he went straight
to water. The man helped me dive to find the little boy but they didn’t
find him. So I jumped overboard and I swam a little distance and when I looked
at the bottom, he was there laying dead.
When I picked him up he was already dead already. The guy put me in his
big boat and they took us to Stann Creek and we put him in this same vehicle
here and we took him to the hospital. When we got there the doctor pronounced
him dead. From the time I picked him up, I knew he was dead.”
John says he observed a wound to his child’s head that may have knocked
the boy unconscious when he fell into the water. Today, John believes that the
boat owner and captain Richard Sjogreen should be held responsible for his son’s
death.
John Francis Petillo,
“I have to blame the owner of the boat. I have to blame the owner
of the boat. In one way he says he is sorry but you can’t be sitting down
driving a big boat like that if you have a back problem. You are supposed to
have a driver or someone to look out for you. All of us are seaman, this man
is at sea for so much years and I have been at sea for so much years and thing
but I have never gotten into an accident yet. At least not like that.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
And he said he didn’t see your boat?
John Francis Petillo,
“He says he didn’t see my boat. The way he was coming Miss,
I didn’t even see any driver. I didn’t see any driver because the
boat was cocked right up, the boat bow was way up. You could have seen the bottom
of the boat when it was coming and the boat just came and sit on top of our
boat, run right on top of our boat and it set there and then that is how the
boat slid off back. I want justice. At least I want justice for my son. I am
not worrying about me. I am worrying about my son because a life, his life can’t
go just like that. I want justice for my son.”
Young Oswaldo Francis Petillo will be buried on Friday. Jacqueline Godwin for
7NEWS.
No charges have yet been brought against Richard Sjogreen as the Police
and Port Authority are investigating to see who was at fault.
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