Blast Survivors Kept Isolated On Gulf For Hours
NPR News—May 11th, 2010
In the aftermath of last month’s explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, all the survivors wanted to do was get to dry land and call their loved ones. Yet for more than 24 hours, they were told to stay on ships on the water.
One reason was that the Coast Guard wanted to get information about the explosions on the rig and what caused them. And the company that owned the oil rig Deepwater Horizon also wanted answers.
Coast Guard officers boarded the supply boat, the Damon Bankston, soon after it picked up survivors, including Deepwater Horizon crew member Christopher Choy, from the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard wanted to know what caused the explosion, and the officers wanted witness statements.
Choy, a young roustabout on the rig, was handed a form to fill out, asking what he’d seen. “They came on there, and they gathered everybody in the galley on the boat and handed out … papers and stuff saying, ‘[These are] statements. You need to sign these. Nobody’s getting off here until we get one from everybody.’ ”
But when Choy read the Coast Guard form, he didn’t like what he saw. “At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, I’m not signing it,” Choy says. “Most of the people signed it and filled them out. I just didn’t feel comfortable doing it.” Choy shared his story at length with NPR and the PBS program NewsHour, in one of the most extensive interviews from a survivor of the April 20 rig blast.
The Coast Guard acknowledges it kept the men on the water in part so its investigators could get statements. But Choy says he thought the man who gave him the form said he was a lawyer with BP, the oil company. BP says it had no investigators or lawyers there.
Choy didn’t sign the Coast Guard form. But he’d come to regret that he didn’t refuse the next time he was asked to sign something.
He says he was desperate to see his wife. Choy, who’s 23, and Monica, who’s 19, were married last October.
Read More: NPR News
