Loss of one of our members...

Last weekend an unfortunate incident happened during our CTC trek  to Nagari in which one of our members lost his life.

Sunday evening a few participants unexpectedly got attacked by a  swarm of bees in which one of them accidentally fell down a cliff  into a deep pool below and drowned. The victim is Prabhu who originally joined CTC during our third Coastal  Cleanup last February and since then participated in 8 treks with our group in the past couple of months. He original hails from Satyamangalam and was working in Chennai as an R&D engineer.

On Monday 15 of our organizers came in overnight from Chennai to coordinate with the officials to retrieve the body from the accident spot and interface with Prabhu's family. We informed his father on Monday  morning who rushed in from Erode. We have been in close touch with his family and been coordinating with the police the past few days and just returned back to Chennai last night after two exhaustive days.

Soft spoken, ever helpful and polite is how many of us would  remember Prabhu. I personally met him first during our Shevaroy  cycling trip in May and he also joined my monsoon trek two weeks  ago. He showed amazing spirit and was very keen on improving his fitness level over the subsequent treks he participated. Some  of you would have met Prabhu in Nagala West (March), Best of Palani (March), Devanoor temple restoration (May), Nagala South East  (June), Kumara Parvatha (June) and Sirumalai Exploration (June).

Kannan, one of the participants who was in close touch with his family in the past few days shared with me today:

"The unfolding of event over the last few days made me Pause and Ponder and gave me time to marvel and appreciate a family  who maintained and showed the highest levels of decorum, kindness, understanding and patience at a time when they were least expected for not showing any of the above.

I was moved to tears when prabhu’s father (who calls me kannu) called me last night - to console me and explain that in spite of  everything it must have been Prabhu’s time to leave all of them and that nothing much could be done about this. He also thanked me for coordinating with all the govt officials, Prabu’s office and his  relatives... I feel very small in front of such towering  greatness."

We have decided to hold off from organizing any treks in the group at least for  the next one month as it would not be appropriate for his family and friends and to reflect on what has happened. We will meet with all organizers to review for introspection, lessons and way forward.

We are planning to meet Prabhu's parents in Erode on the weekend of August 4-5 to show our condolences and maybe talk about a few  moments we shared together with Prabhu during the past months in CTC. If anyone wants to join us, just drop me an email.

Peter.