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.
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