News Room Reports : The family of 31-year-old Andri Francis, a Special Constable, is mourning the loss of a man described by his mother as a devoted son and a confident swimmer. Francis and his 20-year-old pregnant fiancée, Lyodisa “Loyda” Waldron, lost their lives last Sunday in a tragic drowning incident at Unity Beach.
Imelda Francis-Haynes, the mother of the deceased, shared the heartbreaking final interactions she had with her son on the day of the tragedy. Francis-Haynes revealed that she had spoken to her son twice that day. Initially, he had planned to attend a church service in Linden, but changed his plans after hearing that flooding along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway had made the route impassable.
He then informed his mother that he and Waldron would be joining family members at Unity Beach. Francis-Haynes admitted she was immediately apprehensive.
“I seh, ‘Boy, I don’t like that place… I seh be careful,’” she recalled. Her son, confident in his abilities, sought to reassure her. “He seh, ‘Mommy, I is a big boy, look how I big and I could swim well and all them thing,’” she said.
The day turned to tragedy when the group’s outing at Unity Beach—where the couple was enjoying time with relatives—took a sudden, fatal turn. According to reports, Waldron drifted into deeper water and began struggling against the tide.
Eyewitnesses and family members recounted the harrowing moments as Waldron cried out for help. Francis immediately rushed into the water to save her, but both were quickly overwhelmed by the Atlantic’s powerful rip currents.
“She keep shouting and shouting for he,” Francis-Haynes said, relaying the accounts provided by her eldest son, who witnessed the struggle. “When he left to go help her… like the current or something just pin he. He put up he hand and he seh, ‘Help me nah… I want help,’ and that was it. He gone.”
The couple’s bodies were recovered on Tuesday morning among the mangroves along the Unity shoreline after an extensive two-day search involving the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard, and local volunteers.
The couple was reportedly expecting their first child together in August. Autopsies are scheduled for Friday to officially confirm the circumstances of their deaths, though authorities have already characterized the event as a double drowning.
