Daughter pleads: Please find my father

A heart wrenching plea from the eldest daughter of Richard Baird to authorities to double their efforts to find her father who has been missing since Saturday after he went hiking to the Aripo waterfall in the Northern Range.

Kernesha Baird, who resides in Brampton, Canada made an emotional appeal last evening as the search ended for a second consecutive day.

“Please find my father,” she cried. “I want to sincerely thank all of you who are risking life and limb and I want you to know that my family deeply appreciates all your efforts. But please don’t give up. We are counting on you to bring him home.” She said prayers are being offered up every day for her father.

Admitting she feels helpless being so far away, she said she feels in her heart her father is alive but requires urgent medical attention and may have fallen in his attempt to return to the trail.

Kernesha described her father, a computer technician at Petrotrin in Pointe-a-Pierre, as a strong-willed person who in the face of an ordeal will try to fight to be reunited with his family. Baird, 56, of Rousillac was returning from the hike with 59 others. He is believed to have fallen and injured himself.

According to reports, at about 5.45 am, Baird and the others left Mt Poui Road, Aripo to trek five miles into the forest to spend the day at the picturesque waterfall.

The hikers were organised into nine groups and Baird, an experienced hiker was placed in the last group to journey from the waterfall back to Mt Poui Road. It was not until about 5.30 pm that the hikers realised Baird was not with them. The search is expected to continue this morning.