Iain Letham

George Carson

THE only painkillers on the standby boat Silver Pit on the night of

the Piper Alpha disaster were the medic's own, which he had been given

on a previous trip for a dislocated shoulder. There were five ampoules

of morphine on board but they were intended for crew use only and were

under the skipper's control.

Even if they had been released to him, the vessel's medic George

Carson told the disaster inquiry at Aberdeen, he was not trained to

administer the drug. ''It would have been dangerous practice,'' said Mr

Carson, 44, from Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire.

He was asked by Crown QC Mr Tom Dawson at yesterday's hearing if he

remembered a badly injured Frenchman who had been helped aboard the

Silver Pit after escaping from Piper Alpha, but who died later in

hospital.

''I don't think I'll ever forget him,'' said Mr Carson, who was second

engineer on the Silver Pit as well as the medic having completed a total

of five days training mainly in first aid.

''Should there have been painkillers sufficient to deal with something

as serious as that?'' asked Mr Dawson. Mr Carson said: ''Yes,'' and

added that the medication carried on the standby vessel had numbers on

the labels rather than what they contained.

He told the inquiry it was necessary for the medic to go to the

captain to consult a log to see what was in the bottles. The inquiry was

told that the Silver Pit was certificated by the Department of Transport

as being capable of accommodating and looking after 250 men.

Cross-examined by Mr Ian Truscott, advocate for the Piper Alpha Trade

Union Group, he said there had been only three survival or

anti-hypothermia bags on the vessel but on that night there should have

been 250. He agreed that the vessel had inadequate medical supplies and

said with its crew of nine it was undermanned.

Another witness to the inquiry yesterday was Iain Letham, 28, from

Gourdon, Kincardineshire, who said that he had received a bravery award

for his actions on the night of the disaster. He is now an offshore

instructor with Maritime Rescue Services, but on July 6 last year was a

deckhand on the Sandhaven, which was standby vessel to the Santa Fe 135

rig five miles to the north of Piper Alpha.

It took six minutes for Mr Letham and two crewmates to reach the

blazing platform in a fast rescue boat. They moved in and picked up four

survivors and had just pulled away when they saw two more come down.

They turned back and got them on board.

''Then there was a massive explosion and the whole place was just

engulfed in flames,'' he said.

Mr Letham was blown out of the boat and ended up in the water with his

lifejacket melting across his back. He was only one of the nine on the

fast rescue boat to survive. He told of his anger about his lifejacket,

and about seeing other rescue craft in the area but not being picked up.

At the close of his evidence Lord Cullen said to Mr Letham: ''May I

congratulate you on one part for your bravery and on your decision to

return to the field to pass on your own experience to others.''

The man who was master of the Silver Pit on the night of the disaster

was Captain John Sabourn, 52, from Whitley Bay. He told the inquiry that

he now worked for another company which uses converted supply boats as

standby vessels rather than old adapted trawlers. Mr Sabourn said they

have more manoeuvrability than the Silver Pit, whose engines broke down

on the night, its searchlight did not work, and in the course of rescue

operations its only working fast rescue boat sank.

The inquiry continues.