Looking for answers

By Brian Scott

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

More than two weeks after the sinking of the Check-Mate III claimed the lives of two men, the families of the two victims are still looking for answers to their questions about what happened.

More specifically, they want to know why it took a search and rescue helicopter that responded from Gander roughly 90 minutes to get to the two men and why it hovered nearby and waited close to 15 minutes after spotting the two men in the water.

“We’re looking at why it took them so long to get there and why it took them 15 minutes when they got there,” Woodrow Kelloway, who lost his son-in-law in the tragedy, said last week.

“The helicopter never took them out of the water and spent 15 minutes waiting for another boat to come alongside.”

On the evening of Jan. 31, Kelloway’s 32-year-old son-in-law Christopher Wade Oram of Badger’s Quay and 69-year-old Lawrence Clifford Parsons, the mayor of Lumsden, died sometime after the Check-Mate III sank approximately eight miles (12.8 kilometres) north of Baccalieu Island, near the entrance of Trinity Bay.

Though the search and rescue crew from Gander was the first to arrive on the scene, the crew decided a coast guard vessel, the George S. Pearkes, would be the best option for rescuing the two men. However, it would be another 15 minutes before Oram and Parsons would be rescued.

One military official later told the Canadian Press, the men, who rescue crews believed were suffering from hypothermia, would have risked cardiac arrest had they been hoisted by the helicopter.

Last week, to get the answers to their questions, the families have retained the services of Thomas Williams, an attorney with O’Dea Earle in St. John’s.

The morning after the Check-Mate III sank, the search and rescue region commander in Halifax ordered a review and report regarding the incident.

The purpose of the report is to record the details and facts of the incident with the possibility of identifying “lessons learned for the future,” subsequently integrating those lessons into search and rescue procedures across the country, if necessary, Commander Mike Considine, a public affairs advisor for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax said.

According to Kelloway, the families will also be waiting for that report to be released, but he added it’s hard to imagine how the families could accept the review if it finds the proper procedures were followed by the search and rescue crew.

“I can’t see where they made the right decision — not to wait 15 minutes (with the men) in the cold water when they could have been down there in four or five minutes and had them up,” said Kelloway.

“If they did break an arm, break a leg or go into cardiac arrest, at least they tried. That’s what we’re trying to get at. We know they were in the water waving to them and the helicopter was just hovering over them. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Kelloway added he would be willing to meet with the search and rescue squadron to discuss the matter if given the opportunity.

“I would do it,” he said. “I want a lot of answers, but I want the right answers, not just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers. I want explanation answers.”



(Brian Scott is a journalist with Transcontintenal Media’s The Beacon newspaper and a contributor to the Sou’Wester.)