After an hour of wading in the water with his fractured leg, Farrington, 38, saw fins peeking nearby, he told the Nassau Guardian. He grabbed his son and put him on top of a roof for safety, away from the dangers lurking in the water. He implored the boy to close his mouth, stop crying and keep breathing, he said.
But before he could get up to the roof to hold Adrian Farrington Jr., a gust from the hurricane dragged the boy into the surge. That was the last time he saw him.
"I still could remember him reaching for me and calling me, 'Daddy,"" the grieving father told the paper at the local hospital in the capital of Nassau, where he's getting treatment for his broken leg and arm.
He jumped underwater to save his son
As soon as the storm surge swallowed his son, Farrington pushed through debris and rushed to the other side of the roof, where Adrian had vanished into the murky waters. He dove underwater and reached in with his hands, hoping to feel his skin or clothes, he told the paper.
"I ain't find nothing. I come back up. I hold my breath and I gone back down again," he said. " All this time, people carried my wife to safety and they calling me, but I ain't want to go because I didn't want to leave my son."
After a weary search that yielded no signs of the boy, he moved to higher ground. He said he doesn't know if his son will be found and fears the worst.
"What I saw when I lose him, anything could happen. You had sharks swimming in the water, anything could happen," he told the paper. "A 5-year-old in that type of search, they don't stand much a chance."
Rescue crews are scouring the waters searching for survivors after one of the most intense storms to hit the Caribbean flattened homes and washed away neighborhoods, killing at least 30 people in the Bahamas.
Officials in the Bahamas gave a sobering outlook Thursday, bringing in body bags and coolers as hundreds remain missing. Additional morticians are also going to Abaco and other affected areas, Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands said.
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