UPALI OBEYESEKERE REPORTING FROM TORONTO, CANADA
Tragedy struck a Sri Lankan family in Canada on Wednesday, April 21. Supul Jayasinghe had just closed the books on his final exam at Memorial University, Newfoundland. To celebrate, the 21-year-old biology student and his family strolled along the Flatrock coast in Newfoundland Wednesday evening, soaking up the sun.
“We simply looked around [at] the sea,” Don Jayasinghe, Supul’s father, told CBC News Thursday at the very place where a family outing took a tragic turn in just a matter of seconds.
Don Jayasinghe said his son, running after the family dog Neo, slipped on the rocks and ended up in the water as his parents looked on.
“No, don’t go son, don’t go there,” Jayasinghe recalled shouting.
His father said Supul, surprised by ending up in the water, initially took the fall lightly. “But when he was trying to come out … whatever he touched, slipped,” Jayasinghe said.
His son tumbled in the waves as the current carried him further out from shore.
“I was following him, talking to him. And suddenly he understood it is difficult. He asked my help, ‘Dad, help me,'” Jayasinghe said.
His father tried to throw the dog’s leash to Supul, and nearly fell into the water himself. His son seemed to float, treading water, as darkness fell.
Ten minutes later, he vanished.
‘He’s gone’
Supul’s family expressed stoic acceptance of their loss Wednesday, speaking openly to CBC about the ordeal.
“I am a Buddhist. So, everything happens for a reason. So therefore, I have the courage still to stand and talk to you,” Jayasinghe said.
“What has happened has happened … He’s gone.”
Jayasinghe described his son as a “very beautiful soul,” a well-rounded young man who excelled in sports and at school. He volunteered and had aspirations in medicine, and as a teenager even earned a private pilot’s licence and a spot in the local Alberta paper, according to his tearful mother, Chandima.
Supul dreamed one day about joining Doctors Without Borders, travelling the world to help the sick, his father said, even saying he’d give up his salary to locals who needed it more. “That’s how he was … all the time he was thinking [of] other people, not himself.”
The Jayasinghe family moved to Canada from Sri Lanka to encourage that dream. They spent years in Ontario, then Alberta, before settling in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2017.
“So far,” Jayasinghe said, “we don’t have any idea what’s next.”
The father, standing near the shore that took his son, implored others to stay vigilant near the icy water.
“Young people, please listen to your parents … don’t ignore their advice,” he said firmly. “Because if our son heard our words — ‘come back, come back, don’t go there, don’t go there’ — he would have been still alive today.”
As of Thursday afternoon, rescuers haven’t yet deemed the operation a recovery mission. If that happens, and if a body is eventually found, the family says it won’t change how they feel.
“It doesn’t return our son,” Jayasinghe said. “Our son is gone forever.”
Search continues in air and at sea
The sea and air search continues Thursday, as the young man’s parents and friends remain at the scene.
A spokesperson from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary was expected to speak with reporters early Thursday afternoon.
A helicopter from 103 Search and Rescue Squadron in Gander, a Canadian Coast Guard ship from St. John’s as well as Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers spent Wednesday night searching the area, after police were alerted to the missing person.
Officers arrived in the Flatrock area around 8:15 p.m., according to an RNC report, with the Cormorant helicopter arriving shortly afterward. They scoured the coastline and waters, at times using flares to illuminate the area. Flatrock is a town in Newfoundland and Labrador. The town had a population of 1,683 in the Canada 2016 Census. Most of the people in Flatrock are of Irish descent. There are some families who are descended from the few Norwegian settlers who came to Flatrock in the 19th century.
A young life taken away so soon! May Supul attain supreme bliss of Nirvana!
