The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

ANTHONY Rolle heard his badly burned brother pleading for help over the phone before the line went dead.

“Daddy, Daddy, please hurry up, come for me, Daddy. Y’all hurry up, come,” 24-year-old Macaro Rolle told his family from the wreckage of the Flamingo Air plane that crashed near San Andros Airport on Friday.

Macaro survived the initial impact and remained conscious long enough to direct relatives towards him. But his brother said blocked roads delayed the family’s arrival at the crash site for about two hours, while another two-hour wait followed for an air ambulance.

Macaro died before he could be flown from North Andros for further treatment.

“They land after he already died,” Mr Rolle said. “We was carrying him to the clinic.”

Macaro, a certified lifeguard who worked at Ocean Cay, had not returned home to Andros in seven months. He had secured a break from work and was making the long journey back to his family, travelling by boat from Ocean Cay to Bimini, flying from Bimini to New Providence and then boarding the charter flight to Andros.

His father was waiting at San Andros Airport to collect him.

Mr Rolle was working opposite the airport when a man from their Nicholls Town settlement ran over and told him that a plane had crashed.

A second aircraft travelling behind the doomed plane confirmed who had been aboard, he said.

“He called one of them, my brother, that’s how I get to find out,” Mr Rolle said. “Right after that me and my daddy and brother and my friend, we started the search.”

Smoke from the wreckage rose near the end of the runway and was visible from where the family stood.

Before they could reach the scene, Macaro borrowed the phone of someone helping there and called his relatives.

Mr Rolle said his brother sounded strong.

“He called us before we could’ve reach through, and he was like, ‘Daddy, Daddy, please hurry up, come for me, Daddy. Y’all hurry up, come,’” he said.

Macaro remained on the phone as his family raced towards him.

“He was talking to us until we reach right there,” Mr Rolle said. “As soon as I say, ‘Caro, we can see y’all now, we coming now’, then the phone cut out.”

During the call, Macaro described the aircraft’s final moments.

“He tell us how the plane was shaking, start shaking fast, hard before they crashed,” Mr Rolle said.

The family could see the smoke but could not immediately reach the wreckage because roads had been blocked, he said.

By the time they arrived, Macaro could barely respond.

“When I reached there, he wasn’t talking,” Mr Rolle said. “I said ‘Caro, we reach.’ Only thing he said, ‘Huh, uh huh.’ He wasn’t talking.”

His brother found him with catastrophic burns.

“He was burned from head to toe,” Mr Rolle said. “All his clothes burned off him.”

“All the skin was burned,” he said, describing his brother’s body as pink.

The family carried Macaro from the bush in his father’s truck and took him directly to an ambulance.

“We was waiting on air ambulance to come,” he said, adding that the family waited about two hours for the aircraft.

He said Macaro fought until the end, but his brother could see that he was in pain.

He said his brother died about 20 minutes before the air ambulance arrived.

He believes faster access to medical treatment on the island could have saved his brother, adding: “The doctor tried all he could.”

Macaro’s death shattered a family that had been preparing to welcome him home after seven months away.

He was the third of four brothers. Mr Rolle said their parents were distraught.

Macaro normally stayed at the family home when he visited Andros. This trip was supposed to be different.

He had been building his own three-bedroom house and was waiting for workers to finish installing its windows and doors.

He “never got to move in”, his brother said, remembering his brother as loving and deeply devoted to God. Prayer governed even the smallest parts of his daily life.

“Before Macaro eat or drink or answer his phone or leave outside, he have to pray before he do that,” he said. “So if you can’t wait until he finish praying, you could leave him.”

His family is certain he prayed before boarding the flight.