Rock Gutter – Lowmans Bay: one new, one a decade old
For the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, January 12th has become a date etched in sorrow. It is a heartbreaking reminder that while memory can be scheduled, tragedy cannot. Even as one community prepared to mourn a decade-old scar, a fresh wound was torn open miles away on the morning of January 12, 2026.
At approximately 8:30 a.m. along the Lowmans Bay Public Road, a motor vehicle owned by a private electrical company reportedly experienced mechanical issues and collided with a parked crane. The crash claimed the life of 58-year-old Stephen Bulze, a resident of Barroaullie, and left six of his male co-workers, aged 21 to 54, with serious injuries.
An investigation into the collision is now underway, and the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force has extended its condolences to the family of the deceased.
This same date marks a decade since the Rock Gutter tragedy, a wound that has never fully healed in the national consciousness. On that day, a minibus carrying twenty-one people, eighteen of whom were students, veered off the road and plunged into the sea at Rock Gutter, Owia.
The catastrophe claimed seven young lives: five students were confirmed deceased, while two more were swept away by the sea and, to this day, remain officially listed as missing. Their names are remembered with heavy hearts: Jamalie Edwards, Jamall Edwards, Racquel Ashton, Glenroy Michael, Anique Alexander, and the still-missing Chanstacia Stay and Simonique Ballantyne.
Compounding the community’s sorrow is the unresolved nature of the official search for accountability. In March 2017, the two individuals charged in connection with the Rock Gutter incident, Davanan Nanton and Ehud Myers, were acquitted of seven counts of involuntary manslaughter.
This verdict highlights the often-difficult path from tragedy to accountability, leaving a grieving community to navigate the chasm between their immense loss and the final word of the legal system.