The Tribune

By SYANN THOMPSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

sthompson@tribunemedia.net

SILVIA Knowles Rolle yesterday experienced a parent’s worst nightmare two weeks before Christmas, after being told her eldest son had drowned at Cabbage Beach yesterday.

Her son, 38-year-old Chrisco “CK” Knowles, was pulled out of waters on Cabbage Beach, and pronounced dead on the scene after attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. 

Ms Knowles-Rolle was at work when she received the urgent call shortly after 9am yesterday to get to Paradise Island where her son was involved in what appeared to be a boating incident, causing him to drown. With tears flowing, she explained that it was a surreal experience walking toward the beach where officials had her son’s body.

“Someone called me from a school and said it was an emergency, so I spoke with her. I just picked up my car keys and break off running out the office, told them I had an emergency and just left. When I got to the beach and began to walk on the sand, my legs started to get weak. I continued to walk down those stairs as I look out to the sea. I saw the body was on the boat there just rocking trying to get into land, it just made my body weaker,” she said.

When she spoke to this newspaper, she had not yet been able to identify her son, but was told she would be called at a later date to view the body.

She described Mr Knowles as introverted person who last week, out of the blue, started expressing his feelings to her. She said this surprised her as this was not his normal behaviour.

“Last week he texted me a message and said, ‘I love you’ and I said ‘you love your mama?’ and I asked him what happened because I haven’t heard that for a long time. He texted back and said, ‘I love you Mummy; I love you’ and I said, ‘Mummy loves you too,’” she said.

Fighting back tears, his employer, president of Triple A Marine, Stefan Newbold, said Mr Knowles worked as a deckhand. He remembered him as a hard worker who was always available when he needed him.

Mr Newbold explained that the deceased went to use the restroom on a tugboat in waters at Cabbage Beach when his small boat went adrift, and in attempting to swim towards a larger boat, he drowned.

“I was at the airport when I got the call that he (Mr Knowles) was at the tug to use the restroom, in the little boat and apparently he did not tie the rope good enough and when he came out the boat was adrift. He took his clothes off and pitched in the water to swim the boat down and that’s the last sight two of my guys, which was on the barge, they saw him swimming for the boat. I don’t know whether he hit his head, but he was swimming. It’s just a sad situation to know that that was one of my best swimmers, he has a lot of adrenaline. I don’t know what to say. He’s been with me eight, nine years,” Mr Newbold said. 

Officials told reporters that after 9am they were alerted by a passing vessel that a boat in Cabbage Beach waters had ran aground and that a body, later to be identified as Chrisco Knowles was floating in the water.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Alma Rolle and second in charge at the Paradise Island Police Station said that investigations are ongoing and they are speaking with individuals who were on the scene.