A devastating fatal accident at one of Tobago’s most popular coastal destinations has reignited long-simmering calls for a total ban on personal watercraft across the island, after a seven-year-old vacationing girl was struck and killed by a jet ski while playing in shallow water.
The tragedy unfolded on Wednesday at Pigeon Point Heritage Park, where Angelica Saydee Jogie, a primary school student from Barrackpore who was visiting Tobago for the Easter holiday with her family, was hit by the watercraft while swimming. The young victim was just two weeks away from her eighth birthday.
By Thursday morning, law enforcement officers from the Tobago Divisional Task Force had taken a man from Canaan Feeder Road, Tobago, into custody in connection with the incident. Investigations into the girl’s death remain ongoing, and the jet ski involved in the crash was seized by police on Wednesday night and is currently held as evidence at the Crown Point Police Station.
In an emotional interview with local outlet *Express* on Thursday, Salisha Jogie, the victim’s heartbroken mother, made an urgent public plea for sweeping policy change to prevent other families from suffering the same devastating loss. Alongside demanding full accountability for the incident and public disclosure of the detained man’s identity, Jogie called for a permanent ban on all jet ski operations across Tobago’s coastal waters.
“I don’t want anyone else to have to feel the pain I am carrying right now,” Jogie said. “This tragedy must be a wake-up call. It is not just about holding the person responsible for what happened to my daughter accountable. It is about protecting every child that comes to these waters after her. We cannot let this happen to another family.”
Jogie emphasized that the incident has exposed unaddressed risks of unregulated jet ski use in high-traffic public swimming areas, stressing that policy action is long overdue. “My request is that these jet skis be removed from Tobago’s popular recreational areas,” she said. “This death must leave a legacy that saves other children’s lives.”
Reginald Mac Lean, head of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association, joined the call for an all-out ban on Wednesday, framing unregulated jet skis as a persistent public safety threat that has already caused too much harm. “Jet skis are ticking time bombs along our coasts,” Mac Lean said. “Too many people have already been seriously injured, and too many lives have been lost. If operators cannot abide by existing rules that keep them out of designated swimming areas crowded with beachgoers, they should be banned completely across Trinidad and Tobago.”
Mac Lean added that there is no shortage of safer alternative water activities for tourists to enjoy, making a total ban a reasonable and necessary step to protect both visitors and local communities.