Blast Survivors Kept Isolated On Gulf For Hours

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126667241


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, ' 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.

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He wouldn't get onto land until about 28 hours after the explosion on the oil rig. Then someone handed him a cell phone, and for the first time he had a minute to call Monica to say he was safe.

Two hours later, Choy was escorted to a nearby hotel where his wife waited in the lobby. "It was a lot like the day we got married," Choy says of seeing his wife's smiling face at that moment. "She smiled at first, and then it went to tears. And I thought she was going to choke me by hugging me."

Says Monica, "I just didn't want to let go. You know, I just wanted to stay there and just hold him."

'It Shouldn't Count'

But before they could go home, there was one more form and one more attempt to get the survivors to give information. At the hotel, there were representatives for Transocean who asked Choy to initial a line that said: I was not injured as a result of the incident or evacuation.

Choy had seen men with open wounds and burning flesh. He knew 11 of his friends were dead. He felt he was among the lucky ones.

Exhausted and just wanting to get home with Monica, he signed.

That angers his attorney, Steve Gordon of Houston

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props to his wife Monica who took a taxi and a plane to get to her husband. things she had never ever done before.

[Warpy]

1. Those signatures are worthless

since they were made under duress.