The Tribune

A WOMAN has revealed the heartbreaking tragedy behind her 76-year-old father’s death after an air ambulance sent to save him was unable to land in Exuma because the runway lights were reportedly not on, forcing the aircraft to return to New Providence without him on board.

A’neasha Rolle said the emergency flight circled Exuma International Airport at least four times but eventually had to abort the emergency rescue mission. By dawn, Alston Rolle was dead.

Ms Rolle said she had sat in an ambulance with her father and hospital staff around 11.30pm on Wednesday February 18, convinced the aircraft descending toward the island was his chance to survive. Instead, she watched it circle overhead.

“I watched the flight circle at least four times, waiting to land,” she told The Tribune yesterday. “The driver went back out and came back to the ambulance, and he said, ‘okay, the plane cannot land. They can’t get the lights’ on.”

She said she was later told the aircraft was running low on fuel and had to return to New Providence.

Exuma and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper confirmed last week that an emergency medical flight into Exuma International Airport may have been affected by a runway lighting issue and that the intended patient later died.

“I have been advised that preliminary investigations confirm that routine checks of runway lights at sundown confirmed that they were fully operable at that time,” he said. “Unfortunately, I am advised that the intended patient of the emergency flight has passed.”

He said he requested a full investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas and would update the public as more information becomes available. He did not respond to requests for an update on the investigation before press time yesterday.

Ms Rolle said her father, who suffered from dementia, was transported back to the Exuma Healthcare Facilities Clinic to remain under observation overnight. She said his respiratory rate had decreased slightly, and he was placed on oxygen.

She left the clinic around 2am after being told another flight would be arranged after 6am.

At 6.18am, she received a call asking her to come immediately.

When she arrived, she said she felt a “dark feeling.” A doctor later informed her that her father had died around 4am. Staff attempted resuscitation but were unsuccessful.

“He was not in a dying sickness,” she said, referring to his appearance hours earlier. “To know that he was not even given the chance to get the medical care that he needed is just so sad, and it’s something that we just cannot wrap our heads around.”

The loss, she said, compounds another. “He was taken away from us, and not only that, we just lost our mom in 2024,” she said. “You can imagine that this is heartbreaking for us, like we feel like we cannot catch a break, and to know that we cannot even begin to heal from this, it’s just been so much mix up.”

She questioned why his time of death was recorded as 6.19am when she had just received a call minutes earlier, and why she was not informed sooner that he had become unresponsive. She said her father had expressed wishes not to be resuscitated.

The family further alleges that Rolle’s body was removed from the Exuma morgue without their permission and that they are still awaiting its release from the Coroner’s Office.

The incident has intensified scrutiny of healthcare services in Exuma and Ragged Island, where emergency flights are often the only bridge to advanced care in New Providence.

“For years, the people of the Exumas and Ragged Island have been asked to accept less when it comes to healthcare,” FNM candidate Debra Moxey-Rolle said in a statement last week. “What we are seeing now is not inconvenience. It is a failure. And it is dangerous.”