Guyana crash victim ‘got the job done no matter what’

Rishard Khan

Former Trinidad and Tobago journalist Donna Pierre remembers one of the victims of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) helicopter crash as a man who would roll up his sleeves and get the job done no matter what.

Lieut Col Sean Welcome was among five GDF members who died when a helicopter crashed near the Venezuelan border on Wednesday.Pierre, now a World Meteorological Organisation programme officer in Geneva, Switzerland, told Newsday her path first crossed Sean Welcome’s at a training event in Guyana when she was attached to Habitat for Humanity, and he left a lasting impression.“It was clear he had a larger-than-life personality,” she said. “We had a task to deliver, it was late in the afternoon, everyone was tired, and there was Sean. He got to the front of the class and started beating the table as if it was a drum, encouraging the class to sing along.

She could not remember what the song was about, but said, “I remember we laughed so much because he was in full character. This was Sean, the person to roll up his sleeves and get the job done no matter what.”She also encountered him at a regional training event in Cuba in 2016, she said he also left an impression on all there with his personality. “Sean was Sean even in Cuba. He proudly represented Guyana, so much so that if it was one country all the local participants may have remembered, it would have been Sean.”

Also killed in Wednesday’s crash were Brig (Ret’d) Gary Beaton, Col Michael Shahoud, Lieut Col Michael Charles and Staff Sgt Jason Khan.There were only two survivors, Lieut Andio Crawford and Cpl Dwayne Jackson, who were rescued on Friday. Although rescuers reached the crash site on Thursday, getting them out of the area took time because of bad weather. Around 11.20 am on Wednesday, the GDF Bell 142 8R-AYA went missing some 30 miles east of Arau on the country’s western border.

A subsequent release from the GDF said an investigation will be done.